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SPACE MEDICINE (

Complete Interstellar
Ncfvel

THE GODMEN \

By Edmond Hamilton

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jvv V -3 11

DENOTES SPECIAL
FEATURE ARTICLE

NOVEMBER 1958

THE GODMEN 8

Interplanetary science fiction novel by Edmond Hamilton

SPACE MEDICINE 58

Special Science Progress Report by Henry Bolt, Research Engineer

HIS FIRST DAY AT WAR 68

Science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison

CAPTAIN'S CHOICE 78

Science fiction short story by Tom W. Harris

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY 90

Science fiction short story by S. M. Tenneshaw

GATEWAY TO TERROR 104

Science fiction short story by Robert Silverberg

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE 7 78

Science fiction short story by Darius John Granger

THE EDITORIAL 4

JET TRANSPORT 88

GYROSCOPIC REFERENCE 7 76

Front cover painting by Paul E. Wenzel

Published bi-monthly by Greenleaf Publishing Company, 814 Dempster St., Evanston. Illinois. Address
all communications to SPACE TRAVEL, P.O. Box 230, Evanston, Illinois. Entered as second-class matter
at the Post Office at Evanston, Illinois; additional entry, Sandusky, Ohio. Officers: William L. Hamling,
President; Frances Hamling, Secretary-Treasurer. Volume 5, Number 6. Copyright 1958, Greenleaf
Publishing Company. Subscription rate: $3.00 for 12 issues. We do not aecept responsibility for un-
solicited manuscripts or artwork; submissions must be accompanied by stamped, addressed, return envelopes.
Accepted material is subject to whatever revision is necessary to meet requirements and will be paid
for at our current rates. The names of all characters used in stories are fictitious; any resemblance
to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Printed in USA by Stephens Printing Corpora-
tion, Sandusky, Ohio.

It's pretty hard to visualize the
awesomeness of outer space, the
literal infinity that exists in ev-
ery direction beyond Earth's at-
mosphere. Indeed, it's staggering to
the imagination. Consider that if
we achieve the speed of light —
roughly 186,000 miles per second —
the closest star would be several
years travel time away. But that's
nothing. Not even scratching the
surface. There are stars visible only
to the giant telescopes, stars whose
light is just now reaching our op-
tical perimeter — stars which may
have been dead for ages before the
light of their birth becomes appar-
ent. And beyond these, countless bil-
lions of stars whose light will con-
ceivably never reach us if we con-
sider never as future ages of time
as we measure it.

Yes, it's a big universe we're
tapping. Like children putting
our first foot outside the protective
walls of a cradle. We've first got
to learn to stand up, then walk, and
finally run. And even when we run
we'll be getting nowhere at a snail's
pace. That's how big space is.

Science fiction authors have often
tried to paint a picture of this
utter vastness. But only once in
awhile are they successful. This
month we present a novel by the old
"world wrecker," Edmond Hamilton,
which imparts some of that feeling.

In THE GODMEN, Ed shows you
the universe as men may one day
be privileged to view it. Not as
flesh-bound mortals with a limited
life-span, but as entities of pure
thought-force, able to project par-
sees of space in a fraction of a
second. It's a staggering concept,
but within the realm of possibility
since science fiction erects no
theoretical limits. You'll enjoy THE
GODMEN, and perhaps it will set
you thinking . . .

Getting back to a more earthly
view of things cosmic, we've
been enjoying, our 4 inch reflecting
telescope quite a bit in recent
months. The surface of the Moon
is a fascinating sight always, par-
ticularly when we know that men
will set foot on it within a relative-
ly short time. But of even more
dramatic impact is a look at the
various planets. Jupiter, for exam-
ple, which appears as a star to
the naked eye. To see it hanging as
a N ball in space, with at least four
of its Moons in- orbit, that's some-
thing. And if your eyes are accus-
tomed to telescopic viewing, you can
even make out the fabled "red spot."
We heartily recommend all space-
minded readers (and who isn't!)
secure a good telescope — available
at under a hundred dollars — and
have a ball. Which about winds
things up for this issue wlh

j mm

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Legends whispered across the galaxy of a
race which traveled the eternal cosmos without
ships — or any mortal form. Was it legend? Or —

THE GODMEN

C^dmond +J4amaL

amiltort

BLACK, BLACK, the infinite
meadows of God that were
named deep space, and he was
plunging out into them and Sol
was a dwindling spark behind him
and the far stars called.

Break free, little Earthmen,
break free of Sol and Earth!

He had broken free. Forgotten
and petty now were the first feeble
attempts, the Sputniks of decades
before, the moon and Mars rockets

SPACE TRAVEL

that had followed them, all those
stumbling baby steps. Now, with
the star-drive, man had broken free
and for the first time the stars were
conquered —

And suddenly it seemed to Mark
Harlow that all the universe was
laughing at him, at the vanity of
man, a cosmic laughter ringing a-
cross the galaxies.

But you are not the first, little
Earthmen! The Vorn did it long
ago!

And the gargantuan laughter of
that jest rocked and shook the con-
stellations, and Harlow cried out
in disappointment and shame.

He cried out, and awoke.

He was not in space. He was in
his bunk in the Thetis, and he was
sweating, and Kwolek, his second
officer, was looking down at him in
wonder.

"I came to wake you, sir — and
you gave a yell."

The fading echoes of that cosmic
laughter still rang mockingly in
Harlow's ears. He got out of the
bunk and stood on the plastic deck
and he was thinking,

"If it's true, it is a joke on all
of us. And the joke may have cost
Dundonald his life."

The Thetis rested quietly upon
the soil of an alien planet, and alien
pink sunlight came through the
ports of his little cabin. The small
star-ship was a thing of Earth, and
the nineteen men aboard it were

men of Earth, and men had come
a long way in the eighty-odd years
since Suptnik. They had come far,
and worked hard, and the feeling
that it had never been done before
had sparked them all the way, and
now if they found out they had
been anticipated, how would they
feel?

Harlow told himself to forget
that; there was no use dwelling
upon it. Dundonald had brooded
too much on that cosmic mystery,
had gone forth to solve it, and
where was Dundonald now? Where,
indeed? It was up to him to find
out, and that was why he was here
at ML-441, and he was getting
exactly nowhere in his search.

He stretched wearily, a stocky,
broad-shouldered man in jacket
slacks, looking more rumpled than
a Star Survey captain should look.
He asked,

"What is it, Kwolek?"

Kwolek 's round red face was
worried. "Nothing's happened. But
that's what makes me uneasy. Not
one of those people have come near
us all day, but they keep watching
us from the edge of their town."

Harlow came alert. "N'Kann
hasn't sent any word?"

"No." And Kwolek added, "You
ask me, those saffron so-and-sos
have just been stalling you."

Harlow grunted. "You may be
right. But I'll wait till sunset. If
he doesn't send a message, I'll go

THE GODMEN

back in and have it out with him
again."

"It's your neck," said Kwolek,
with a characteristic fine, free lack
of respect. "But they look kind of
ugly to me."

Harlow went through the narrow
metal corridors and out of the lock,
stepping onto withered, orange-col-
ored grass. The heat and glare,
reflected by the shining metal flank
of the Thetis, hit him like a blow.

A dull-red sun glared from low
in the rosy sky. It was not a very
big or important star. It had no
name, only a number in the Star
Survey catalogues. But it had two
planets, of which this was the inner-
most, and it was a big enough sun
to make this world hot and humid
and slightly unbearable.

The orange-colored grassy plain
on which the Thetis had landed
ten days before rolled gently away
to hills crowned by yellow forests.
But only a mile away upon the
plain rose the strange crimson stone
town of the people who called them-
selves the Ktashas in their own
language. The red light of the set-
ting sun painted their weird mono-
lithic city an even deeper crimson.

Harlow could see the gay-colored
short robes of the golden-skinned
people who stood in irregular rows
at the edge of the town, and stared
toward the Thetis.

"What gets me," said Kwolek,
"is that they're so blasted much

like us."

He had followed Harlow out of
the ship, and so had Garcia, the
Third Officer, a young Mexican
whose trimness was a constant re-
proach to Harlow and Kwolek. The
Star Survey was strictly UN, and
the Thetis had a dozen different
nations represented in its crew.

"I should have thought you
would have got over your surprise
at that, by now," said Garcia.

Kwolek shrugged. "I don't be-
lieve I'll ever get over it. It was
too big a shock."

Yes, thought Harlow, that had
been the first surprise men had got
when, after the first trips to the
disappointingly lifeless nearer plan-
ets, they had got to other stars.
The discovery that an Earth-type
world would usually have human
and animal life reasonably close to
the Terran had been unexpected.
But then the quick-following dis-
covery that the old Arrhenius the-
ory had been correct, that there
were spores of life in deep space,
had explained it. Wherever those
spores had come from, whatever
faraway fountainhead of life, they
were identical and when they fell
upon a world like Earth they had
quite naturally developed the same
general types of life.

A big surprise, yes, but not a
dismaying one. Earthmen were still
ahead, sometimes far ahead, of
these other human and humanoid

SPACE TRAVEL

races in achievement. After all,
they had said, we were the first
race of all to conquer space, to
invent the ion-drive and then the
spacewarp, and travel between the
stars. We men of Earth — the pio-
neers.

And that, thought Harlow, was
where the second surprise had
come. As ships of the Star Survey
landed on far-separated star-worlds,
as their linguists learned alien
languages and spoke with these
peoples, they gradually got the
surprise. Almost all these peoples
of the stars had a common belief,
a legend.

"You Earthmen are not the first.
Others have travelled the stars for
a long time and still do. The Vorn."

qpHE NAME WAS DIFFER-
*■■ ent on different worlds, but
the legend was always the same.
Earthmen were not first. The Vorn
had been first. They had been, and
still were, star-travellers. And —

"The Vorn use no ships like
yours. They come and go, but not
in ships."

Small wonder that scientists of
the Star Survey, like Edwin Dun-
donald, had felt a feverish curiosity
to get at the bottom of this legend
of the Vorn. There had to be some-
thing behind it. Peoples forever
separated by light-years could not
make it up in their own heads
simultaneously.

And Dundonald's party had set
out in their Starquest, and that had
been the start of it, for Harlow.
For no communic : message could
come back from Dundonald at
these vast distances. And when
Dundonald himself had not come
back, after months, the Survey be-
came worried. Which was why the
Survey had sent Harlow to find
Dundonald, who was his friend and
also a valuable scientist. Since his
plans had included this star-system,
they had come to ML-441 to find
his trail.

"We've been here all this time,"
Kwolek was saying pessimistically,
as they stared at the silent, dis-
tant figures and the town. "We've
learned their language, and that's
all we have learned. It's a wash-
out. And now I think they want us
off their world."

"We're not leaving," Harlow
said, "until we talk to that man
Brai."

Brave words, he thought. What
had he been doing here all this
time but trying to find Brai, and
failing. Failing in the very first
step of his search for Dundonald.

As they stood there, the sun
touched the horizon and washed
lurid light over everything. Harlow
turned.

"Fm going in to see N'Kann. I'm
going to have this out with him."

"I'll go with you," said Kwolek,
but Harlow shook his head.

THE GODMEN

"No. And I don't want you com-
ing after me, either. Wait."

As Harlow walked forward, he
was conscious of the sullen hostil-
ity in the gay-robed, immobile,
silent group at the edge of the
monolithic town. The very first
Star Survey ship to touch here had
accurately estimated the half-civil-
ized state of the Ktashan culture,
and it was the Survey's policy to
deal with all such peoples with a
careful ' absence of patronage or
domination.

That, Harlow thought, was what
had made it difficult for him all
along. He didn't think it would be
any easier now, when his persistent
questions about Dundonald and the
Vorn had roused superstitions.

The sun went out like a lamp
and the moonless dark clapped
down. Torches flared as he walked
across the plain, and he headed to-
ward them. And there in the torch-
light amid other tall, impassive,
golden-skinned men stood N'Kann.
His powerful face was hostile, and
his voice rolled harshly in the slur-
red language that Harlow had
learned.

"There is nothing for you here.
Take your ship and go!"

Harlow walked up to him, his
hands hanging loosely at his sides.
He kept his voice carefully calm
and casual.

"We will go. But it is as I have
said before. We seek the Earthman,

Dundonald, who was here. We must
know where he went from here."

"I have told you that we do not
know," retorted the Chief Council-
lor.

Harlow nodded. "But there is
someone here who does know. A
man of your people named Brai.
Dundonald talked to him."

He remembered very well the
garrulous old man of the Ktashas
who had told him— cackling the
meanwhile at Harlow's mispro-
nunciations — that the last Earth-
man here had talked of the Vorn
with young Brai. He had not found
Brai. He had not even found the
old man again.

Harlow said, "Where is Brai?"

"Who knows that name?" re-
torted N'Kann. The faces of all
the Councillors were blank. "No
one."

"Yet Dundonald spoke with
him," persisted Harlow. "He spoke
with him of the Vorn."

The ruddy torches flared steady
and unshaken but it was as though
a cold wind swept through the
group of golden men when they
heard that name.

And N'Kann threw up an arm
free of his barbaric bright robe,
and gestured with it toward the
black sky, spangled by stars across
which the dark blot of the mighty
Horsehead Cloud sprawled like a
brooding cosmic octopus.

"My people do not talk of the

SPACE TRAVEL

Wanderers— no!"

So the Vorn were also called the
Wanderers here? Harlow filed that
fact mentally, and pressed another
question.

"Why? Are you afraid of them?"

The flash in N'Kann's eyes was
dangerous. "We do not fear any
men. Certainly not Earthmen."

"Then the Vorn are not men?"

"I will not talk of them."
N'Kann's voice rose, heavy with
rage. "They come and they go
from star to star as they wish,
and it is their right, and it is not
for us to speak of them. Nor for
you, Earthman — nor for you!"

The little group muttered agree-
ment, and from all along the torch-
lit row of men there was a move-
ment toward Harlow. Hands were
under their short robes now, and
he knew they had weapons in their
grasp.

He had no weapon, nor if he
had could he have used one. The
law of the Star Survey was iron
on that point. If you went to an-
other people's world and flashed
Earth weapons, court-martial a-
waited you.

"I say again that we wish no
more talk of the Vorn!" cried
N'Kann. "And that by tomorrow's
sunrise, your ship must be gone."
Harlow knew that he had failed.
He had not found even the first
clue to Dundonald's trail, and if

he left ML-441 now, he would
never find one. Yet they were not
going to let him into the town
again to look for Brai, that was
clear.

He turned and walked back into
the darkness of the plain. He heard
low, fierce voices behind him, and
the timbre of them made him think
that he had been lucky to get away
from them unscathed.

But had he got away yet? The
torches were soon well behftid him,
and the lights of the Thetis a half-
mile ahead, when Harlow's ears
picked up a stealthy sound from
behind. A sound of quiet running.

He turned quickly. He could see
nothing. Whoever came was being
careful not to show himself against
the distant torches.

So they had decided not to wait
out their own ultimatum, and had
sent someone after him? Harlow
felt anger rise in him. He had no
weapon. But they were not going
to hunt down an Earthman in the
dark like this.

Too far, to call to the Thetis.
His only chance was in counter-
surprise. He went down on one
knee and poised waiting, listening.

He heard the soft, fast footsteps
come closer, and just glimpsed a
flitting darker shadow against the
dark.

Harlow lunged and crashed into
the runner, hard.

THE GODMEN

CHAPTER II

>~pHEY ROLLED OVER and
-■* over together in the dark. Then
Harlow, grabbing fiercely for his
antagonist, got a surprise. It was a
girl.

He held onto her by her smooth
bare shoulders, but now she man-
aged to speak in a quick, panting
whisper.

"I am not your enemy. Please!"

It took him a moment to speak;
he had to think of the Ktashan
words he had learned, and for that
moment he stood gripping her.
Back at the edge of the town the
torches were moving, and they
struck a fitful gleam that showed
Harlow the short-robed figure and
clear, golden young face of the
girl.

"Who are you and why did you
follow me?" he demanded.

"You look for Brai?" she said
breathlessly.

Harlow was instantly alert. "I
want to talk to him, that's all.
Do you know him?"

"I am Yrra," said the girl. "I
am Brai's sister."

Harlow took his hands off her.
He glanced back toward the mov-
ing torches, but they were moving
into the town, not toward him. Yet
he was sure there were still watch-
ers there, and he kept his voice
down when he spoke.

"I was beginning to doubt

whether there was a Brai. Where
is he?"

- Yrra talked in a rush that he
could hardly understand. "They
are holding him a prisoner.
N'Kann and the Council. He was
already under disapproval, and
when your ship came they seized
him and hid him away."

"For God's sake, why?"

"So that he could not talk to you
of the Vorn, as he had talked to
the other Earthman," she answer-
ed.

"To Dundonald?" Harlow felt
a kindling excitement. "Listen,
Yrra — what did your brother tell
Dundonald? About the Vorn, I
mean."

She was silent a moment. "There
are only legends. That is all Brai
knew, all any of us know."

"But the legends? Do they speak
of where the Vorn come from,
where their native star is?"

"Yes. They do," she said. "It
is said that long ago some of the
Vorn who came to our world spoke
— in their own way — with some
of our people, and told them
things."

"Then you, know as much as
your brother on that point!" Har-
low said. "Good. You can tell me
what he told Dundonald, about the
origin-world of the Vorn."

"I will not tell you," said Yrra
flatly.

"Why not? You mean you're

SPACE TRAVEL

superstitious too about the Vorn?"

Her reply was edged with pride.
"We are not all as backward here
as N'Kann. My brother is a stu-
dent and a thinker. He would like
to see our world become more
civilized. That is why he talked
so eagerly to the other Earthman —
Dundonald."

"All right, so you're not super-
stitious," Harlow said impatiently.
"Then why won't you tell me?"

She caught his arm. "Listen,
Earthman — "

"The name is Harlow," he in-
terrupted. "Go ahead."

"It is this, Harlow. I am afraid
for my brother. They said—
N'Kann and the others — that he
was only locked up to keep him
from talking with you, that he
would be released when you left.
But I fear that in their superstiti-
ous anger, they may kill him."

"Go on," said Harlow.

"Help me set Brai free," said
Yrra coolly. "Then he and I will
tell you all that is known about the
Vorn."

Harlow felt his momentary hopes
wither. "It's no good," he said.
"It can't be done; we're not allow-
ed to interfere with local law and
justice. Anyway, where would your
brother go? They'd just grab him
again when we left."

"There are other towns and
people on this world beside
Ktasha," said the girl. "Brai and

I will go to one of them. Our par-
ents are dead, there's only the two
of us."

Harlow shook his head. "I don't
blame you for trying to break him
out but it's no deal. We can't use
force, it's against our orders and
anyway, we're about to be run out
as it is."

"There would be no need of
fighting!" Yrra said earnestly. "I
know where he is, all I need is help
to slip him out of there." She add-
ed, "Unless you do so you will
learn nothing."

Harlow felt trapped. The rules
of the Star Survey were rigid. Its
men were allowed to defend them-
selves but not to barge into other
peoples' worlds and throw their
weight around. From the very start,
it had been a basic tenet that
Earth's sudden leap into space was
not to be used for crude imperial-
ism.

And yet if he left ML-441 with-
out a single clue to Dundonald's
trail, without an inkling of where
Dundonald had gone in his search
for the Vorn, he would have to go
home and report failure. It was a
long way back to Sol, for that.

"I just don't see how — " Harlow
began, and then was stricken dumb
by a startling interruption.

From the moonless sky of stars
came a faraway shriek that in a
heartbeat of time became a thun-
derous roar. Yrra cried out and

THE GODMEN

pointed upward at a black bulk
blazing with rows of lights that was
rushing down upon them like a
falling meteor. But Harlow had
already recognized that sound,
and it was the last sound he had
expected to hear.

" Another ship!" he exclaimed.
"Now why—" Then his hopes
bounded. "By Heaven, maybe it's
Dundonald come back here!"

"They have seen, in the town,"
Yrra said swiftly. "Look!"

Back in the Ktashan town the
torches were tossing wildly as men
ran back out onto the dark plain.
Over the dull, steady roar of
riven atmosphere from the descend-
ing ship, Harlow could hear far-
away cries of anger and alarm. He
could well imagine the state of
mind of N'Kann and the others
when, right after ordering his own
ship away, they saw another one
arrive.

"They are coming," Yrra said.
"And if they find me talking se-
cretly with you here, I will be im-
prisoned like Brai."

He took her arm. "Come with
me. It's all you can do, until they
calm down."

TTE RAN WITH HER toward
11 the flights of the Thetis, glanc-
ing up warily to make sure he did
not get under the descending ship.
But the newcomer was dropping to
a position on the plain a little be-

yond the Thetis.

Men were running out of the
Thetis, as he and Yrra ran up.
He darted a glance backward and
saw the torches streaming out over
the plain. Now the newly-arrived
ship was landing on the ground,
its keel tubes spuming ghostly
clouds of ions, and he made out
its outlines as those of a twenty-
man star-cruiser like his own ship.

Kwolek came running up to him,
as he and Yrra reached the Thetis.
"It's another Star Survey cruiser!
Do you suppose it'—" Then he
broke off, looked at Yrra, and
whistled. "Where'd you pick her
up?"

"Get the men back into the
ship," snapped Harlow. 'There's
liable to be trouble. And take her
with you. Garcia, you'll come with
me."

To Yrra he spoke as rapidly as
he could in the Ktashan tongue.
"Go with him. Your people are
coming and they must not see you
with us."

She flashed a look of under-
standing at him, and went with
Kwolek without a word.

The torches were coming across
the plain in ragged order, still
some distance away. Harlow glanced
at them worriedly and then with
Garcia beside him he hotfooted it
around the stern of the Thetis.

His first close look at the newly-
landed ship shattered his hopes.

Dundonald's cruiser had been the
Starquest, but the name on the
bows of this one, beneath the Sur-
vey emblem, was Sun fire.

"Not Dundonald," said Garcia.

"But I didn't know another Sur-

ship was anywhere near here."

The lock of the Sunfire opened
as a square of glowing light in the
dark flank. A tall figure shouldered
out, glanced around, and then came
toward Harlow and Garcia.

By the light streaming from the
lock, from which other men in
the standard uniform were now
emerging, Harlow saw a big young
man with close-cropped red hair
and keen, light blue eyes in a raw-
boned face.

"Taggart, commanding the Sun-
fire" he said, extending his hand.
"You'll be Harlow? I'm from Sec-
tor Three Division, I don't think
we ever met. What the devil's go-
ing on here?"

"The people here are not happy
about your coming," Harlow said
dryly. "If I may make a sugges-
tion, I'd confine your men aboard
ship for the present."

Taggart looked at the oncoming
torches and swore, then turned
and rapped out an order to the
men in the lock. Then he turned
back to Harlow.

"Service courtesy demands that
I visit your ship first, but shall
we get a move on?" he said.
Harlow thought they had bet-

SPAGE TRAVEL

ter. The torches were uncomfort-
ably close, and he could hear the
angry voices of the men who car-
ried them.

With Garcia following them, he
and Taggart went back around the •
Thetis on the double. As they
reached its lock, he saw that the
Ktashans had stopped a pistol-shot
away, but a shout that he knew
was from N'Kann rolled loudly.

"I warn you again, be gone by
sunrise! All of you!"

Inside the Thetis, Taggart turn-
ed to Harlow with a perplexed look
on his face.

"What's got into these people?
They were listed as quite friend-
ly."

"They were — until Dundonald
got to talking with one of them
about the Vorn," said Harlow.

Taggart's face lengthened. "So
that's it. I wish no one had ever
heard this cursed myth about the
Vorn. It's kicked up trouble from
here to Earth and it's still kicking.
It's why I'm here."

Harlow didn't like the sound of
that, but kept from asking ques-
tions as they went toward his
cabin. He passed Yrra standing un-
certainly in a companionway with
Kwolek. Taggart looked at the girl
admiringly as Harlow said,

"Wait here for a little, Yrra.
They mustn't see you come out
of our ship."

She nodded, looking very young

THE GODMEN

and more than a little unhappy, and
he went on.

When Taggart was sprawled in
a chair in his little cabin, with a
drink, Harlow said,

"Let's have it."

Taggart set the drink down. "We
were pulled out of Sector Three
survey work to come here on spe-
cial service. Our orders— to report
to you, and assist under your com-
mand to find Dundonald and the
Starquest."

Harlow stared. "Meaning no
discourtesy to you, but why in the
world would they send another
ship? If one can't find Dundonald,
two can't."

"There's more to it than that,"
said Taggart. He looked keenly
at Harlow. "Ever hear of the Car-
tel?"

Harlow was about to say he
hadn't, but then checked himself.
He remembered something. He said
slowly,

"That was years ago, back in
the time when the star-drive was
first invented, wasn't it? A bunch
of tycoons on Earth who decided
the star-drive was too profitable a
thing to let the UN have, and
tried to grab it. They got slapped
down hard."

Taggart nodded. "That was the
bunch. Now it's happening again,
according to what the Survey just
heard. There's a new Cartel op-
erating — a group of tough mag-

nates on Earth who are after some-
thing as big as the star-drive."

" After what?" demanded Har-
low.

Taggart picked up his glass and
drained it. "After the Vorn."

"The Vorn?" repeated Harlow.
"I'll be— Why, nobody even knows
who or what or where the Vorn
are!"

"Right," said Taggart. "But one
thing people do know. They know
that ever since the Survey started
exploring the star-worlds, at world
after world we've heard the stories
about the mysterious Vorn, and
how they can travel between the
stars — without using ships like
ours. It's why your friend Dun-
donald is hunting for them. It's
why some very rich men on Earth
are also extremely interested in
finding them."

He hunched forward, speaking
earnestly. "Lots of people think
these Vorn may have some method
of instantaneous transmission of
matter across interstellar distances.
If they do, it would make star-
ships obsolete. All right. A new
Cartel, so the Survey just learned,
is out to find that secret."

TTARLOW STARED at him
A A troubledly. It made sense.
There was a type who felt that
nothing must be discovered, in-
vented or made that did not make
them richer than they already

SPACE TRAVEL

were.

Taggart leaned back, stretching
tiredly. "When Survey Center heard
that the Cartel has ships out hunt-
ing for Dundonald too, they
thought you'd better have reinforce-
ments. I was available, so they
shoved me here. I've brought some
weapons, by order, in case of trou-
ble."

He added, almost cheerfully,
"Well, that's it and I'm reporting
for orders. When do we start look-
ing for Dundonald, and where?"

"I wish I knew," Harlow said
gloomily. "There's one man here
who knows where Dundonald
went, but I can't even get to him."
He told Taggart about Brai, and
what Yrra had said. The redhaired
captain listened attentively. Then
he exclaimed,

"Why, there's no big problem in
that. We'll help the girl get her
brother out and this Brai can tell
us what we want to know."

"But Survey regulations forbid
intrusions into local law and jus-
tice — " Harlow began.

Taggart snorted, and got to his
feet. "Listen, Harlow. I'm fresh
from Survey Center and I can tell
you this: Survey is in such a sweat
over the possibility of this Cartel
getting to the Vorn and their secret
that they'll overlook any minor
infraction of rules. But they won't
overlook failure on your part."
That, too, made sense, Harlow

knew. He had realized from the
first that he couldn't leave ML-441
without finding out anything.

"What we ought to do is take
this wench and spank the informa-
tion out of her," he growled.

Taggart grinned. "I'd sure en-
joy it. But she may not really
know much, so we have to get her
brother. I'll take on the job of
doing it."

Harlow said, "We will. We can't
send men into danger on a mission
that's against the rules, but we can
go ourselves."

He touched the intercom and
spoke into it and presently Yrra
came into the cabin. Taggart
whistled softly in appreciation,
much as Kwolek had done. But she
looked anxiously at Harlow, and
her fine brown eyes lit up when
he told her.

"It has to be tonight, your peo-
ple will be at our throats by to-
morrow," he finished. "The ques-
tion is, can you lead two of us to
where your brother's locked up
without our being seen?"

"I'm almost sure I can!" Yrra
said.

"Confidence is a wonderful
thing," grunted Harlow. "All right,
Taggart, we'll start our jail-break-
ing mission in an hour. We'll have
to circle out in a big curve to come
at the town from the other side."

Two hours later, he and Taggart
and Yrra had made most of their

THE GODMEN

big detour and were approaching
the Ktashan city from the far side.
They walked quietly in the dark-
ness on the grass, and the wind
brought them a heavy fragrance
from flowering trees outside the
town, mingled with a smell of acrid
smoke from the crude vegetable-
oil lamps these people used. Beyond
the trees the monolithic town was
a blacker bulk dotted with softly-
lighted windows, looking for all the
world like a single rambling stone
castle that went on and on.

Yrra's warm fingers closed on
Harlow's wrist. "From here I must
lead."

Harlow nodded, and he heard
Taggart murmur, "All seems quiet
enough. "

"Too quiet," Harlow muttered.
"Most of the people are out watch-
ing our ships and waiting for sun-
rise. Then it'll blow off."

He and Taggart went forward
in the dark, and Yrra led the way
as silently as a shadow. From the
sky the unfamiliar stars looked
down incuriously, a spangled
canopy made even more strange to
Earthly eyes by the vast, brooding
black blot of the Horsehead. Har-
low looked up at that alien sky
and wished that nobody had ever
heard of the Vorn. We wished that
the first sputniks and rockets had
never happened and that man had
had sense enough to stay on his
own worm.

He did not know just how
desperately he would wish that be-
fore morning.

CHAPTER III

>~pHEY WALKED in a dark,
-^ narrow street that was no more
than a corridor cut out of the rock.
On either side rose walls of the
same stone, with here and there a
door or shuttered windows. The
doors and shutters were of metal,
and no light came from them. Nor
was there any sound except the
clump of their boots, which seem-
ed to Harlow's strained ears loud
enough to wake the dead. He
thought that this stone city would
make a fine trap.

The makers of this place had
been a patient folk. They had
found a great solid outcrop of red
sandstone and they had set to work
to carve it into a city. How many
centuries they had chiselled away
at the soft stone, he could not
guess. But rooms and walls and
streets and narrow ways like this
one had taken shape under the
chisels, and as the people had
grown they had worked ever farther
and deeper into the outcrop until
this staggering monolith town was
the result.

"These are the ways between the
grain warehouses," whispered Yrra.
"Now we must cross a street, and
we must not be seen."

SPACE TRAVEL

Harlow was grateful that there
was no street lighting, when they
came to the wider crossway. The
only illumination was lamplight
from windows along it, but that
was enough to show a number of
the Ktashan men and women. They
were hurrying along the street,
calling to each other in excited
tones.

"They're talking about the ar-
rival of your ship," muttered Har-
low to Taggart.

"Yes, I got it," said Taggart un-
expectedly, and then explained. "I
studied copies of some of the lan-
guage-tapes the first Survey party
here made — the one before Dun-
donald. Nothing else to do on the
way here."

Harlow waited until there were
no passersby within a block, then
whispered the word. They skipped
across the shadowy street into an-
other narrow stone way.

As Yrra led deeper into the dark,
monolithic maze, Harlow felt the
whole weight of the place on his
spirits.

How long until sunrise?

Why did Dundonald have to go
Vorn-hunting anyway?

Why—

"Just ahead," came Yrra's whis-
per. "There is a guard. You see
him?"

They were in a stone alley so
narrow that Harlow would have
called it a hallway if it were not

open to the stars. The vague light
showed a Ktashan man, tall in his
skimpy robe, standing in front of
a metal door with a thing in his
hand that looked like a metal bar
ending in a blade.

Harlow said, "If we rush him,
he'll let out a yell. Yrra, can you
circle around and approach him
from the other side — get him to
turn his back on us?"

For answer, she slipped away
the way they had come. Harlow
heard Taggart move uneasily, and
then glimpsed a gun in his hand.

"Oh, no," he whispered. "No
shooting. We could never explain
that away to Survey Center, and
anyway it would rouse the whole
place."

"All right, but it's going to make
it tougher," said Taggart. "That
bar-sword looks like a mean
weapon."

Yrra's voice now came out of
the dark from ahead. She was
speaking to the guard, and Har-
low gathered that she was asking
to see her brother.

The Ktashan man turned to-
ward her as she approached, and
grunted a gruff refusal.

"Now," said Harlow.

He led the way, walking on tip-
toes like a child playing a game.
Then he jumped on the guard's
back.

He got one hand over the man's
mouth to prevent an outcry. But

THE GODMEN

he hadn't bargained that this
Ktashan would be as strong as a
bull, and he was. The man tore
at Harlow's wrist, and reached
around with his other hand to get
hold of Harlow anywhere he could.
It was humiliating to realize
that while you were reasonably
young and strong, you were up
against someone a lot stronger.
Harlow realized it, and clung
frantically, and then there was a
thumping sound and the man col-
lapsed. He fell so suddenly that
Harlow fell with him, and then he
saw that the Ktashan was out
cold. He scrambled up.

Taggart chuckled. ''More ways
to use a gun than firing it," he
said. He had rapped the guard
over the head with the barrel.

Yrra was already at the metal
door, tugging vainly at the catch.
She turned and said swiftly,
"It's locked."

"I expected that," said Harlow.
"Stand back a little."

He put on the heavy gloves he
had in one pocket, and drew out
from another pocket the compact
little cutting-torch he had brought.
He touched the stud and drew the
thin, crackling tongue of flame
around the lock.

A piece of the door that in-
cluded the lock fell out. Harlow
grabbed it just in time to keep it
from clanging on the stone.
Taggart reached out and pulled

the door open by the cut-out notch,
and then let go of it and cursed
feelingly and blew upon his burn-
ed fingers.

Yrra darted through into the
dark beyond the door. They heard
her call softly.

"Brai!"

Harlow went in after her. Tag-
gart had a pocket-light and flashed
it on.

IN A BARE LITTLE stone room
without windows and with no
furniture but a wooden cot, a
young Ktashan man was babbling
excitedly. He turned an eager, good-
looking golden face toward Harlow
and Taggart.

"I have told him," Yrra said
rapidly. "He will tell you every-
thing he told Dundonald, if we get
away."

"Dundonald was my friend,"
Brai said proudly, in imperfect
English. "I learned many things
from him. I learned your lan-
guage—"

"That's fine," said Harlow has-
tily, "but the main thing is to get
out of this rat-trap quick. We can
talk when we get back to the
Thetis.' 9

They went out, and Taggart
examined the stunned guard and
then hauled him into the cell he
had guarded.

"He'll come to in an hour or
less," said Taggart. "But if we're

SPACE TRAVEL

not back to the ships by then, we'll
never be."

Within fifteen minutes they had
slipped back through the dark
streets and were hurrying out onto
the starlit plain.

Harlow could not believe it. He
had felt a dismal certainty that
they would be found and trapped
in that labyrinthine monolith, and
it still seemed impossible to him
that they had gone in and got
Brai and got out again without
even a challenge. The fact that
most of the Ktashans were out on
the plain watching the Earth ships

all that had made it possible.
^ They went back in their wide
circle to avoid the Ktashans on
the plain, moving fast and not
in less than the hour Tag-
had mentioned, they had
circled clear around and were ap-
hing the two star-ships from
the side farthest away from the

The lights of Taggart's ship, the
■vhich was nearest to them,
now shone brightly in the night.
they came toward it, Taggart
uttered a low whistle. Next mo-
ment a half-dozen men appeared
between them and the Sun fire,
coming toward them.

'There was no need to post men
out here," said Harlow, irritated.

"Oh, yes, there was," Taggart
said.

There was a mocking quality in

his voice that Harlow had not
heard before, and he turned quick-
ly. The light from the Sunfire fell
on Taggart's rawboned face, and
he was smiling, and the gun in his
hand was pointing at Harlow.

"I don't want to kill you but I
don't particularly mind if I have
to," said Taggart. "Stand still."

Harlow stared, too shocked for
the moment to get it. "What the
hell kind of a Survey captain are
you—" he began, and then he got
it. "You're no Star Survey man,
and I was stupid enough to fall
for it!"

"That's right," said Taggart
lightly. "But I told you the truth
about one thing. The Cartel does
have ships out hunting for Dun-
donald and the Vorn. And the Sun-
for all that we pasted a Sur-
vey emblem on it, is one of those
ships."

The catastrophic implications of
it hit Harlow. The Cartel who were
after the Vorn and their secret
had an efficient agent in Taggart.
The man had followed him to ML-
44i in his hoaxed-up ship, had
boldly gone in with him after Brai
when he learned that Brai was the
key to Dundonald and the Vorn,
and now he would —

"Brai— Yrra— run!" yelled Har-
low, and plunged straight at Tag-
gart.

He was so mad right down to
his roots that the gun facing him

THE GODMEN

didn't matter. All that mattered
was his raging resolution that
Taggart's clever trick was not go-
ing to succeed.

Taggart hadn't quite expected
that crazy lunge. He fired, but a
moment too late, and the gun
roared close beside Harlow's ear as
he hit Taggart.

They went over onto the grass
and rolled struggling, and in one
of the moments he could see, Har-
low glimpsed Yrra running like a
deer with men after her, while
other men had hold of Brai and
were beating him into submission.

There were distant yells of alarm
and Harlow knew the gun must
have been heard by some of his
own men at the Thetis. He strug-
gled furiously in the grass with
Taggart, to keep a second gun-
shot from tearing through his mid-
dle.

Then the world caved in on him.

The blow didn't feel like a
blow, it felt like the sky falling.
No, it was he who was falling,
down through infinities of dark-
ness and pain. One of Taggart's men
had run up and hit him with some-
thing and his nerveless hands could
no longer hold onto anything.

He heard a voice saying hoarse-
ly "These Survey men are com-
ing!"

He heard Taggart's voice saying,
"We've got to jump fast."

Then he heard nothing and felt

nothing for a time that seemed
very long though later he knew he
had only blacked out for a few
moments. He struggled fiercely
back to consciousness. He was lying
in the grass and voices somewhere
were yelling louder and the Sun-
jire loomed dark and big and still
only a few hundred feet from him.

As Harlow tried to get up, the
slim projecting ion-drive tubes
along the keel and stern of the
Sunfire shot forth their ghostly
spume of light. Under the impetus
of the drive, the ship rushed up-
ward and a shock-wave of air hit
Harlow and rocked him back off
his feet.

The Sunfire was gone.

It had happened so fast, from
the moment when Taggart's men
had come out of the darkness, that
Harlow still could not quite take
it in.

Then his own men were around
him, Kwolek and Garcia and the
others, yelling to know what had
happened. But Yrra clung to his
arm and made herself heard above
them.

"Brai! Where is Brai?"

Harlow looked around, his head
aching and everything still in a
fog. He spoke thickly, in her lan-
guage.

"Brai's gone? Then they took
him with them. They would, of
course. He knows where Dundonald
went and that's what Taggart is

SPACE TRAVEL

after."

"What the devil is the Survey
coming to anyway?" cried Kwolek,
in tones of pure outrage. "One
captain knocking out another* and
shooting and — "

"Taggart's not Survey, he was
a fake and his ship was a fake,"
Harlow said. He added bitterly,
"And I fell for it, he fooled me one
hundred percent."

He pushed aside Kwolek's
steadying hand. "I'm all right.
We've got to take off fast. We're
going to run down Taggart, and
we mustn't let him get out of radar
range. Move!"

They moved, running back to
the Thetis, Kwolek bawling or-
ders. But Yrra still clung fiercely
to Harlow.

"I am going with you," she
said. "After Brai."
, He was about to tell her that
she couldn't and then he thought
better of it. She had helped Brai
break out of his cell, and when
her people found that out he didn't
know what they would do to her.

"All right, but we've got to take
off fast," he said. "Come on:"

He ran, stumbling a little, to-
ward the Thetis. Kwolek came
running to meet them, and there
was rage on his round red face.

"No take-off — not for a while,"
Kwolek said. "They were clever,
blast them. Take a look at this."

"This" was one of the Thetis 9

projecting stern ion-tubes. Some-
one with a cutting-torch had cut
halfway through it where it came
out of the hull.

"That tube has to be replaced,"
said Kwolek, "or it'll blow high
and handsome the minute we turn
on the drive."

Harlow thought that Taggart
hadn't overlooked a thing.

As they stood, stricken into
silence, they heard a distant roar
of voices. It came from out on
the dark plain. Torches, very many
of them now, were moving out
there, and they were moving fast
toward the Thetis. The shouting of
the men who carried them swelled
louder.

"My people have found out that
Brai escaped," said Yrra. "They'll
think we have Brai here, and — "

She did not need to finish. The
intentions of the infuriated
Ktashans were very clear.

CHAPTER IV

IT WAS VERY NOISY 'inside
the Thetis. Part of the noise
was being made by Kwolek and his
crew down in the bowels of the
drive-room, but only a small part.
Most of it came from outside.

Harlow felt as though he were
standing in the interior of a great
iron-sided drum. Yrra, beside him,
had her hands over her ears. He
could feel her flinch at the loudest

THE GODMEN

crashings, and he knew she was
frightened — not of the noises, but
of what they could mean to her.

The screen in front of them
showed the ground around the ship.
It swarmed with Ktashans. The sun
was high now, and between its heat
and their own activities most of
the men had thrown off their short
robes, leaving only loose drawers
that did not hamper their move-
ments. Their golden bodies gleam-
ed, glowing with energy and sweat.
They had hammered tirelessly on
the Thetis' hull for more than three
hours now and they showed no
signs of flagging. So far the dura-
metal hull had resisted everything
they had from stones to crude
drills and wrecking bars. But the
stubborn methodical battering was
getting on Harlow's nerves.

He leaned over to the intercom.
"How's it going?"

Kwolek's voice answered him in
a rasping snarl. "It won't go at
all if you don't quit pestering me.
Some fool question every five min-
utes!"

"Okay," said Harlow. "Okay."

He didn't blame Kwolek. The
boys were doing the best they
could. They could have replaced
the damaged tube in half the time
from outside, but the Ktashans out
there made that impractical. So it
was being done under emergency-
in-space procedure, from inside,
with only one difference, which

help some. They didn't have to
wear vac-suits.

"It won't be long now," he said
to Yrra, having to shout to make
himself heard but trying to make
it a comforting shout. He knew
what she was thinking. He was
thinking the same thing himself. If
the Ktashans ever managed to
break their way inside, their
chances for living long were poor.
They didn't have Brai now, but
they had committed their sin
against custom and tabu when
they got Brai out of his prison.
And what had happened afterward
would probably only make N'Kann
more determined than ever to pun-
ish them for having set loose no
one knew what menaces connected
with the Vorn.

He took Yrra by the shoulders
and turned her away from the
screen. He said,

"I want to know about the Vorn
— everything that your brother
told Dundonald."

She was scared, but after a mo-
ment she answered him.

"He told Dundonald all that
he knew, all that my people know.
It is all legend, for it was two gen-
erations ago." She thought a mo-
ment, then went on. "The Vorn
came to this world — "

Harlow interrupted. "How did
9 they come? What did they look
like?"

Yrra stared. "It was not known

SPACE TRAVEL

how they came. They had no ship
like this one — no ship at all. They
suddenly were just here."

And that, Harlow thought, was
the same story that the Survey had
heard on several worlds about the
Vorn. They did not use ships, they
just appeared. Some method of
instantaneous transmission of mat-
ter seemed the only answer to that
riddle. It was small wonder that
the Cartel back on Earth was
grabbing for such a secret.

"As to how they looked," Yrra
was continuing, "the stories are
strange. It is said that they were
human, but not human like us —
that they were of force and flame,
not of flesh. Is such a thing pos-
sible?"

That, too, was the cryptic des-
cription that other worlds had
given the Survey. It could mean
anything, or nothing.

"I don't know," said Harlow.
"Go on."

"It is said," Yrra told him, "that
the Vorn spoke to our people in
some way. Our people were very
afraid. But the Vorn said they had
not come to harm them, that they
were star-rovers who visited many
worlds and were merely visiting
this one. They said they would go
back to their own world, but might
come here again some day."

"Where did the Vorn say their
home-world was?" asked Harlow.

It was the crucial question and

he waited tensely for the answer.

"In the Great Blackness," said
Yrra, using the name given by the
Ktashans to the Horsehead that
was such a big feature of their
night sky. "The Vorn said that be-
yond two blue stars that burn at
the edge of the Blackness there is
a bay that runs deep into it, and
that a green star far in that bay
was their native star."

Harlow's hopes leaped up. He
had noted the twin blue stars on
the fringe of the Horsehead — and
this sounded like a clear clue.

"Is that what Brai told Dun-
donald?" he asked, and Yrra nod-
ded.

"Yes. And that is why my peo-
ple condemned Brai. For when
Dundonald left here he said he
would search for the world of the
Vorn, and so great is my people's
reverence for the Vorn that they
thought that sacrilege."

The banging upon the hull of
the Thetis suddenly stopped. In
the abrupt silence, Harlow thought
hard. He said,

"Whether or not the Vorn are
really there, that's where Dundon-
ald went so we have to go there.
And that's where Taggart will have
headed, as soon as he got this in-
formation out of Brai."

"Brai would never tell a treach-
erous enemy like that anything —
not even under torture!" Yrra de-
clared proudly.

THE GODMEN

Harlow looked at her a little
pityingly. "You don't know Earth-
men. They're too clever to use tor-
ture any more. They use a process
called narco-synthesis, and other
things. Brai will tell all he knows."

Yrra did not answer. She had
turned to look at the screen and
i now her eyes were wide and bright
with a new terror.

Harlow followed her gaze, and
his own nerves tightened with a
shock. He saw now why the Ktas-
hans had stopped hammering on
the Thetis' hull.

q^HE GOLDEN MEN were all
A running out onto the plain to
meet something that was coming
slowly from . the city. It trundled
ponderously on wooden wheels,
pushed by a gang of sweating men.
It was a massive ram made of a
colossal tree-trunk tipped with
stone.

Harlow jumped to the intercom.
"Kwolek, we've got maybe ten
minutes! They're coming with a
nutcracker that'll spring our plates
for sure."

"Ten minutes? We need an hour
more!" answered Kwolek 's voice.
"We've unshipped the damaged
tube but it'll take that long to in-
stall a, new one."

Harlow thought a moment, then
made decision. There was only one
thing to be done.

"Suspend work," he said. "Seal

the tube-mounting and come up
here. We'll take off as is."

"Are you crazy?" Kwolek howl-
ed, but Harlow snapped off the
intercom.

Kwolek and Garcia came into
the bridge a minute later. Kwolek's
red face was smeared with dirt and
he was badly upset.

"You ought to know that a take-
off on unbalanced tubes will sun-
fish the Thetis all over," he said.
Then he saw the screen and the
sweating, triumphant Ktashan men
on the plain, all pushing their mas-
sive ram faster and faster toward
the ship. He said, "Oh." He bent
over the intercom and spoke into
it loud urgent words, ending up
with a profane order to get it done
fast. Harlow took Yrra by the arm
and pulled her away from the
screen, where she was still watch-
ing with fascinated horror the
ponderous approach of the ram.

"This is going to be rough," he
told her. "You'll probably be
scared to* death, but it won't last
long."

Either way, he thought, it ivon't
last long. If we make it, or if we
don't.

He strapped her into his own
bunk, making her as secure and
comfortable as possible, and when
he got through she looked so small
and patient and scared and too
proud to show it that he kissed her.
Then he ran back to the control

SPACE TRAVEL

room.

Kwolek and Garcia were already
strapped in, Kwolek with his ear
glued to the intercom and both of
them watching the screen. The ram
was much closer now. Its massive
head of red stone looked and was
heavy enough to batter down the
stone walls of a city.

Kwolek said, "Another couple
of minutes. We don't want to take
any chances of the seal blowing out
when we hit vacuum."

He was sweating visibly. So was
Garcia, but more neatly, refraining
somehow from staining his tunic
collar. Harlow said,

"Give me the outside speaker.
Fast."

He strapped himself into his own
recoil chair while Garcia flipped
switches and made connections on
the communic board. He too watch-
ed the screen. He could see the
scars of combat on the barrel of
the ram, the histories of old bat-
tles written in the chips and cracks
in the stone warhead. He could see
the faces of the Ktashans, quite
clearly. They were the faces of
fanatics, uniform across the galaxy
no matter where you found them.
The men who knew they were
right, the men without mercy.

Garcia handed him the mike.
"Her,e." He looked at the great
red head of the ram and folded him-
self as small as he could in the
confines of his chair, as though he

wanted to compact his atomic
structure as solid as possible against
the coming shock.

Harlow roared into the mike.
Amplifiers picked up his voice and
magnified it a thousand-fold and
hurled it forth from the ship's ex-
terior speaker system.

"N'Kann!" he cried. "Get your
men out of there. We're taking
off." In the screen he could see the
startled faces upturned toward the
gigantic sound of his voice, the
bodies arrested in motion. "We're
taking off! Run, or you die.
N'Kann, you hear me? Leave the
ram and run!"

Kwolek turned from the inter-
com and said, "All ready."

Harlow stared at the screen.
Some of the Ktashans had turned
to run. Others still stood undecided.
Still others, the hard core of
violence, shouted and waved their
arms toward the ship, urging on
the ram.

Harlow groaned. "The fools,"
he said. "I don't want to kill them.
I can't—"

The ram inched ponderously
forward.

"Get away!" he yelled at them
with a note of desperation, and
touched a stud on the central con-
trol board.

The Thetis quivered and began
to hum to herself, a deep bass note
of anticipation.

The ram stopped. The men stood

THE GODMEN

by it, starfng up. Behind them the
larger crowd was melting away,
slowly at first and then with in-
creasing speed.

Harlow touched the stud again,
advancing it a notch. The hum
became a growling, a wordless song.
The Thetis gathered herself for the
upward leap.

"Get away!" screamed Harlow
into the mike, but his voice was
almost drowned in the iron voice
of the ship, and then suddenly the
men turned from the ram and fled
away across the plain.

Harlow set his teeth and slam-
med the firing key all the way
down.

npHE THETIS WENT UP in a
A great wobbling surge, like a
bird with an injured wing. But she
was an awfully big bird, and ter-
ribly strong, and the violence of
her thrashings about nearly snap-
ped the eye-teeth out of Harlow's
head. He fought through a deepen-
ing haze to keep her from flopping
over out of the control of her
gyros and crashing back to the
ground, feeling the contents of his
skull wash back and forth like
water in a swinging kettle, feeling
the straps cut into him when he
went forward and the bolts of the
chair prod him through all the
padding when he was flung back,
hearing strange rasping grunting
whistling noises that he knew was

himself trying to breathe. The con-
trol panel dimmed and at last dis-
appeared beyond the red mist that
filled the cabin, or his own head.
His pawings at the keys became
blind and unsure. Panic swept over
him. I'm blacking out, he thought,
/ can't hold her, she's going down.
He tried to scream, in anger and
protest against this sudden end, in
fear and regret. The contraction of
his diaphragm forced blood into his
head and held it there for a mo-
ment, and the mists cleared a lit-
tle and the wild gyrations of his
insides steadied down just enough
for him to get hold of reality, if
only by its thinnest edge.

He hung on, forcing himself to
breathe deeply, slowly. One. Two.
^ Three. The indicator lights winked
peacefully on the board. The
furious thrashings of the unbal-
anced drive had settled to a sort of
regular lurch-and-spin no worse
than that of a ship in a beam sea.
The Thetis was in space. She was
not going to crash.

He looked around at Kwolek and
Garcia. Both of them were bleed-
ing at the nose — he found that he
was too — and their eyes were red-
dened and bulging, but they man-
aged to grin back at him.

"That's a devil of a way to treat
a good ship," croaked Kwolek. "If
I ever get hold of that Taggart — "

"You and me both," said Har-
low. "Let's get that tube fixed."

SPACE TRAVEL

3°

Kwolek was already unstrapping.
He went staggering out of the con-
trol room. Harlow gave the con-
trols to Garcia and staggered after
him, heading toward his own quar-
ters.

He found Yrra almost uncon-
scious in the bunk, her flesh al-
ready showing some cruel bruises
from the straps. He unbuckled
them and wetted a towel in cold
water and wiped her face, smooth-
ing the thick tumbled hair back
from her forehead. Presently she
opened her eyes and looked up at
him, and he smiled.

"It's all right now," he said.
"Everything's all right."

She whispered, "Brai?"

"We're going after him. We'll
get him back."

"From the world of the Vorn."
She was silent a moment, her gaze
moving about the unfamiliar cabin.
The tiny viewport was open. She
looked through it at her first view of
deep space, the stars burning all
naked and glorious in their immen-
sities of gloom, and Harlow saw
the thrill of awe and terror go
through her. Her fingers tightened
on his wrist, and they were cold.

"On my own world I was not
afraid of the Vorn," she whispered.
"I laughed at N'Kann and the old
men. But now — " She stared out
the viewport. "Now I am in the
country of the Vorn, and I am a-
fraid." She turned suddenly and

buried her face against him like a
child. "I am afraid!"

Harlow looked over the top of
her head to the viewport. The coun-
try of the Vorn. The black and
tideless sea through which they
voyaged at will between the island
stars. Harlow had never been afraid
of the Vorn, either. He had hardly
believed in their existence. But
now, when he looked at space and
thought of the brooding Horsehead
and the two blue suns that burned
in its shadow, he felt a cold prick-
ling chill run down his spine.

Dundonald had gone that way
and he had not come back.

THAT PRICKLING of fear did
not leave llarlow in the long
days that followed — arbitrary
"days" marked out of the timeless
night through which the Thetis
fled. With the damaged tube re-
placed, she built up velocities
rapidly on a course that took her
straight toward the Horsehead.
There was no sign of Taggart's
Sunfire on the radar. He was too
far ahead for that. In fact, he was
so far ahead that there was no hope
of overtaking him or forestalling
any action he might take on the
world of the Vorn, which he would
reach long before Harlow. Any sen-
sible man would have said the pur-
suit was hopeless, but the men of
the Thetis were not sensible. If
they had been they would never

THE GODMEN

have signed up with Survey. Also,
they were angry. They had been
made fools of, and they had almost
died of their foolishness, and now
they were determined to catch up
with Taggart if it took them the
rest of their lives.

Which might not be very long,
Harlow thought. He looked gloom-
ily at the screen that showed the
panorama of space ahead of the
Thetis. It was one of the most mag-
nificent sights in the galaxy. You
sat stunned and wordless before
it, and no matter how often or how
long you stared at it the wonder
and the glory did not depart. There
was the whole vast canvas of the
universe for a backdrop, and all
across it, arrogant, coal-black, and
light-years vast, the Horsehead
reared against a bursting blaze of
suns. Magnificent, yes. Splendid
and beautiful, yes. But there was
another word that came to Har-
low's mind, an old word not much
used any more. The word was
sinister.

Yrra spent as much time as she
could with him in the control room,
watching the screen, straining her
eyes for some glimpse of the ship
that carried her brother. Harlow
noticed that the Horsehead had the
same effect on her. There was a
sign she made toward it, furtive
and quick as though she were a-
shamed of it, and he knew that it
was a Ktashan sign to ward off

3i
evil.

For a long time the relative po-
sitions of the tiny ship and the
great black nebula seemed not to
change. Then gradually the blazing
fringe of stars passed off the screen
and the blackness grew and swal-
lowed the whole viewfield, lost its
shape, and then finally produced a
defined edge outlined against the
light of distant suns, and eventual-
ly that black coastlike showed the
marker-lights of two blue sullen
stars.

The Thetis decelerated and felt
her way between the beacon suns.
Beyond them was a bay, a bight
in that incredible coastline. And
now fear really caught the men of
the Thetis — a fear much greater
than any they might have felt for
the deeds of men or the legendary
Vorn. This was something absolute-
ly elemental, and it had to do with
the terror of darkness and alienage
and unhuman might that go back
to the beginnings of the race.

None of them had ever been near
a black nebula before. They were
deathtraps, blind areas where radar
was useless, where a ship was help-
less to protect herself against drift-
ing stellar debris, where you might
ram yourself full on into a drowned
dark star before you ever knew it
was there. Now they were creeping
antlike into the very flanks of the
Horsehead. The bay was relatively
narrow, and it wound and twisted

SPACE TRAVEL

around great shoulders of black-
ness, past upflung cliffs of dust
that lifted a million miles to crests
that blazed with the fires of hidden
stars, over crevasses that plunged
a million miles to break in a rag-
ged cleft through which stars show-
ed as faint and distant as those of
Earth on a cloudy night. Every-
where you looked, up, down, ahead
or on both sides, those incredibly
vast clouds enclosed you in their
eternal blackness, like the shroud-
ing draperies of a funeral couch
made ready for some god.

Kwolek shook his head. "For
God's sake," he said. "If the Vorn
lived in here, no wonder they found
a way to conquer space. They had
to!"

The Thetis crept on and on in
that nighted cleft, and presently
there was light ahead, the blaze of
a green sun that touched the loom-
ing clouds around it with a lurid
<>w.

They crept closer and saw a
planet.

"That must be it," said Garcia.
"The world of the Vorn."

"If there's anything in the Ktas-
han legends," said Harlow. "Any-
way, it's the world where Dun-
donald went, and where Taggart is.
We're going to have to be damned
careful going in — "

Yrra, who was sitting at the back
of the control room, suddenly made
a small sound of exhaled breath.

It was a very curious sound, sug-
gesting a fear too great for mere
screaming. Harlow's skin turned
cold as though from a sluice of ice-
water. He turned his head. He saw
Kwolek and Garcia, both frozen,
staring at something still behind
him. He saw Yrra. A sickness grew
in him, a fatal feeling that some-
thing totally beyond human ex-
perience as he knew it was already
confronting him. He continued to
turn, slowly, until he could see.

He was not wrong. From out of
the blackness of the Horsehead and
the fire of an alien star, silently,
with no need for clumsy armor or
the sealing of locks, something had
come to join them in the ship.

Yrra whispered a word. She
whispered it so faintly that under
ordinary conditions he might not
have heard it, but now it rang in
his ears with a sound like the last
trump. She said,

"The Vorn!"

CHAPTER V

THERE WAS NOTHING mon-
strous or terrible about the
Vorn as far as looks went — no
crude grotesqueries to shock the
eye. It hung in the still air of the
cabin, a patch of radiance like a
star-cloud seen from far off so that
the individual points of light are
no more than infinitesimal sparks.
The Vorn's component motes seem-

THE GODMEN

ed at first to be motionless and
constant, but as Harlow stared he
became aware of a rippling, a
fluctuation of intensity that was as
regular and natural as breathing,
and this was the crowning touch
that turned his blood to ice. The
thing was alive. Creature and force
and flame, as the legends said, not
human but living, thinking, sens-
ing, watching.

Watching him. This unhuman
voyager between the stars, watch-
ing him and pondering his fate.

Kwolek had picked up something
and was holding it with his arm
drawn back for a throw, but he
was just holding it. Garcia just sat.
His lips were moving, as though he
prayed hastily under his breath.
Yrra slid very slowly and quietly
onto the floor in an attitude of a-
basement.

Harlow spoke. Some automatic
reflex set his tongue in motion, and
words came off it, sounding so stiff
and ridiculous that he was asham-
ed, but he could not think of any
others. These words came easy,
straight out of the Manual. He had
said them many times before.

"We belong to the Star Survey.
We are on a peaceful mission. We
have come to your world — "

Knock it off, Mark!

Harlow knocked it off, in mid-
breath. He stared at Garcia and
Kwolek. Neither one of them had

opened his mouth.

Yet somebody had spoken —

Kwolek started violently. "Who
said that?"

"Nobody said anything," Garcia
whispered.

"They did, too. They said,
'Kwolek, put down that silly lump
of iron before you get a cramp in
your shoulder'."

"You're crazy," said Garcia
quietly, and seemed to go back to
his praying.

"Mark," said the voice again to
Harlow, "I seem very strange and
frightening to you but that is only
because you don't yet understand
the scientific principles that make
this changed form of mine possible.
My atoms are in different order
from that in which you last saw
them, but I'm otherwise quite the
same. Well, no. Not quite. But
near enough so that I can truth-
fully say that I'm still Dundonald."

"Dundonald," said Harlow, star-
ing at the patch of fluctuating ra-
diance that hovered in the air be-
fore him. He added softly, "For
God's sake!"

Kwolek and Garcia turned their
heads and looked at him. They
spoke almost together.

"Dundonald?"

"You heard him," Harlow mut-
tered.

"They didn't hear me at all,"
the voice said to him. "Shake the

SPACE TRAVEL

cobwebs out of your head, man.
You can't afford to be stupid now,
you haven't the time. This is tele-
pathy, Mark. I'm communicating
with you direct because it's the
only way I have now. Unfortunate-
ly I haven't the energy to com-
municate with all of you at once.
Now listen. I've been waiting for
you — "

"What are you talking about?"
Garcia said to Harlow. "What do
you mean, Dundonald?"

"You better take the time to tell
them," Harlow said to the patch
of light. "I doubt if they'll believe
me."

He put his hands over his face
and trembled quietly for a moment,
trying to understand that his quest
for Dundonald was ended, that this
amorphous cloud of energy-motes
was his friend, his drinking com-
panion, the flesh-and-blood Dun-
donald with the strong hands and
ruffled brownish hair and the
bright blue eyes that were always
looking past the familiar to the
distant veiled shadows of the un-
discovered.

He could not believe it.

"That doesn't matter," said Dun-
donald's thought-voice in his mind.
"Just accept it for the time being.
What does matter is that Taggart
is all ready for you. That ship of
his carried heavy armaments. He
has them set up, and the moment
he catches your ship on his radar

the missiles will fly. Then you'll
be dead and I'll never get back, so
please mind what I say."

"You'll never get back?" repeat-
ed Harlow. "Back where?"

"To the old me. Solidity. Tag-
gert has the Converter. It's guard-
ed night and day and I'd be killed
on sight if I stepped through. So
would any of the Vorn, I suppose,
though none of them have for cen-
turies. So — "

"Wait," said Harlow. "Just wait
a minute. I'm trying to understand,
but you've lost me. Converter?"

"Of course, a converter. What
did you think made us — me — like
this?"

"I don't know," said Harlow
numbly. "Just what is 'like this'?"

"Exactly as you see," said Dun-
donald. The patch of radiance
bunched up, swirled, then shifted
so quickly that Harlow thought it
was gone. "Matter into energy,
only the ancient Vorn solved the
problem of achieving the conver-
sion without losing either intelli-
gence or personality. The individual
remains unchanged. Only his body
is free of the limiting shackles of
the flesh."

npHE PATCH OF RADIANCE

-■■ moved toward the iron bulk-
head. It glided right through the
solid iron, and then came dancing
back again.

"No more barriers. No more

THE GODMEN

death. No wonder the Vorn lost
interest in the old planet-bound
life. I tell you, Mark, even in my
brief term as one of them, I've seen
and done things — Have you any
conception of what it is like to fly
free as a bird between the stars,
covering light-years at the flick of
a thought, with no fear of any-
thing? And not only the stars,
Mark, but other galaxies. Time
and distance are only words with-
out meaning. The greatest secret
ever discovered. Nothing so crude
and clumsy as the transmission of
matter, which would merely send
you like a package from transmitter
to receiver, leaving you as planet-
bound as ever. No, the Vorn de-
veloped a mechanism that gave
them the real freedom of the uni-
verse."

The radiance danced and floated,
and Kwolek and Garcia and Yrra
stared at it with naked fear, and
the thoughts from it kept pouring
into Harlow's mind and he did not
think he could take any more. It
was easy enough to talk of leaving
off the shackles of flesh and wear-
ing a body of pure energy, but it
was too big for his brain to grasp
as yet. He said,

"Dundonald."

"Yes?"

"I'm Mark Harlow, remember?
I'm just a guy from Earth. You
spring this on me all at once, you
expect me to—" He broke off, and

then he clenched his hands and
made himself go on again. He said,

"Listen. I'm talking to a patch
of light. And I get a thought in
my mind that this light-patch says
it's Dundonald, a man I knew. It's
hard to take. You know?"

Dundonald's thought came with
a pitying quality in it. "Yes, Mark.
I suppose it is."

"All right." Harlow felt sweat
damp on his forehead, but he star-
ed straight at the misty radiance
and said, "Give it to me slow, then,
will you?"

"All right, Mark, I'll give it to
you slow. But not too slow, please,
for time is running out."

Harlow asked, "You found the
world of the Vorn from the legend
Brai told you about?"

"Yes."

"You found the Vorn on it?"

"No. No, Mark— the Vorn have
been gone from that world for a
long, long time. Ever since they
found out how to change and be-
come — like me. I found their dead
cities, and I found the Converter.
Not them."

"The Converter that made you

this way. What made you do

it, Dundonald?"

The answering thought was
strong. "I had to. I had to try the
thing, after I learned its secret. I
went through. I was still like this— -
like the Vorn — when Taggart's ship
came."

SPACE TRAVEL

: <And

"Ah," said Harlow,
then—?"

"My men, my ship, were wait-
ing," Dundonald answered. "Tag-
gart took them by surprise, easily.
In the fight, three of my men were
killed. He has the others locked

up."

Harlow, in the anger he felt,
almost forgot he was not talking to
Dundonald in the flesh. He said,
between his teeth,

"He's very good at trick sur-
prises, is Taggart."

"He learned," said Dundonald,
"that I was — on the other side.
He has armed men watching the
Converter. If I try to come back
through, he'll have me."

"But what's he doing — just sit-
ting there?" demanded Harlow.

"He's waiting, Harlow. He sent
out communic messages, to some-
one named Frayne. Frayne, I gath-
ered, commands another of the se-
cret ships that the Cartel sent to
find me and the Vorn. Taggart
messaged him to come to the world
of the Vorn, to help him take the
Converter away."

The appalling picture began to
come clear to Harlow. If the Car-
tel ships got this Converter away,
the ultimate freedom of the uni-
verse would be in the hands of a
group of greedy men who could
exploit the greatest of all discover-
ies for their own power and profit.
"Oh, no," said Harlow. "We've

got to stop that. Can we reach that
world before this other ship —
Frayne's ship — does?"

"I don't know," said Dundonald.
"Frayne can't be too far away or
he'd be out of range of communic.
That's why you've got to hurry, to
get there first. Yet you can't land
right where Taggart is, his ship-
radar will spot you coming and his
missiles will get you before you're
even close. The only way you can
get to him is through that."

And the patch of radiance be-
came a round ball and moved to
the visiscreen, touching the black
outward bulge of a looming cloud-
cliff.

"I can guide you through it,
Harlow. But you'll have to come
down beyond the curve of the
planet and walk the rest of the
way to Lurluun — that's that old
Vorn city where the Converter is.
After that—"

"After that," Harlow said, "we'll
hit Taggart with everything we've
got."

"Which isn't much," Dundonald
said, "if all you have are the pop-
guns prescribed by Regulation Six.
Well, they'll have to do. Change
your course now, and make it fast."
Harlow, as he moved, glimpsed
the strained face of Yrra gazing in
awe at the floating core of radiance.
He said,

"Something else, Dundonald.
"The girl's brother, Brai. She came

THE GODMEN

after him. Is he still living?"
"He's with Taggart's prisoners—

my men," came the answering

thought. "How long any of them

will live if Taggart pulls this off,

you can guess."

Harlow told Yrra briefly, in her

own language, and saw the tears

start in her eyes.

"For God's sake, will you

hurry!" prodded Dundonald's

thought.

FEELING VERY STRANGE
indeed, like a man dreaming
or drunk or in partial shock, Har-
low spun the Thetis around on her
tail and sent her plunging toward
the black cliff of dust.

He filled in Kwolek and Garcia
as much as he could in a few words,
and had Garcia get oil the inter-
com to the crew. He tried not to
look at the dust-cliff ahead. It was
a million miles each way and it
looked as solid as basalt. The green
glare of the distant sun touched
its edges with a poisonous light.

"Relax," said Dundonald. "It
only looks that way. I've been
through it a dozen times."

"Fine," said Harlow, "but we're
still bound to our old fleshly selves,
not at all impervious to floating
hunks of rock."

"I'll take you through, Harlow.
Don't worry."
Harlow worried.
The cliff was black and imminent

before them. Instinctively Harlow
raised his arm before his face,
flinching as they hit. There was no
impact. Only suddenly it was dark,
as dark as Erebus, and the telltales
on the board flopped crazily. The
Thetis was blind and deaf, racing
headlong through the stellar dust.
Kwolek muttered, "This is crazy.
We just imagined we saw and
heard—"

"Shut up," whispered Harlow.
"I can't hear — " He looked around.
Panic hit him. The patch of ra-
diance was gone. Dundonald was
gone. Dundonald? How did he
know it was Dundonald and not a
deceitful stranger, one of the old
Vorn sent to lead him to destruc-
tion? He could wander forever in
this cosmic night until the ship was
hulled and they died, and still they
would wander forever —

"Pull your nose up," came Dun-
donald's thought sharply. "Three
degrees at least. What the hell,
Mark! Pull it up.. Now. Starboard
ten degrees— forget the degrees.
Keep turning until I tell you to
stop. Good. Now keep her steady
—there's some stuff ahead but we'll
go under it. Steady — "

Harlow did as he was told, and
presently he saw what he had not
seen before— the misty brightness
that was Dundonald's strange new
being drawn thin as a filament and
extending out of sight through the
fabric of the ship. Harlow found

SPACE TRAVEL

time to be ashamed.

The utter dark went on, not
quite forever. There was no thin-
ning, no diffusion. Or perhaps they
went through the fringe area so
swiftly that none was apparent.
One moment the screens were dead
black and in the next moment the
green sunblaze burst painfully upon
their eyes and they were out of
the cloud, back in the vast, dark-
walled bay of the Vorn. But their
detour through the dark had now
brought them out on the other side
of the green star and its planet.

Dundonald's thought reached
him, urgent. "Taggart expects you
to come after him, straight in
through the bay the way he came.
He's got his ship cruising out in
front of the planet to radar your
approach."

"And weVe got the planet be-
tween us and his ship, masking
us," Harlow said. "If we keep it
between, we can land secretly."

"That's it, Harlow. But you've
got to hurry! I'll guide you in."

Strange pilot for the strangest
landing a men ever made, thought
Harlow. Don't think about it, don't
think about what Dundonald has
become, play it as it comes, take
her in.

He took her in. The Thetis hit
the atmosphere and it was like
plunging into a green well.

"I'm trying to land you as near
Lurluun as I can," said Dundonald.

"But this planet rotates, and Lur-
luun is rolling toward the picket-
ship out there, and you have to
keep the curve of the planet hiding
you."

The ship plunged downward, and
now weird-colored forests rolled be-
neath them, vast deserts of greenish
sand, mountains of black rock
stained with verdigris like old cop-
per, a strange, unearthly landscape
under the light of the emerald sun
that was setting as this side of the
planet turned away from it.

A low black range rose ahead of
them and Dundonald urged him to-
ward it, and the Thetis went down
on a long slant with the screeching
roar of riven atmosphere about
them. And Harlow, his hands tense
on the controls, thought that he
saw scattered cities fly past be-
neath them.

"All dead," came Dundonald's
thought. "More and more of the
Vorn took to star-roving and fewer
and fewer came back, until gradu-
ally the race here died out. And
now hardly any of the Vorn are
left in even this part of the galaxy.
They've moved on and out."

An instant later he warned,
"Drop her! This side of the ridge!"
They landed in a desert where a
river had cut a deep fantastic
gorge down through the sand and
the layers of many-colored rock.
The tawny waters ran toward the
rocky ridge, and through a canyon

THE GODMEN

in it.

Dundonald said, "Don't waste
time on atmosphere-check, the air's
breathable. I lived here for months,
and the Vorn lived here for ages,
and they were as human as us."

Harlow went to the intercom and
gave an order. "Crack the lock.
All hands out."

When they went outside, it was
into air that was dry and warm
and faintly metallic in smell. The
green desert stretched around them,
and the light of the viridescent
sun struck brilliantly across it and
painted the looming black rock of
the ridge with poisonous colors.
There was a silence, except for the
murmur of the river in its gorge.
The men looked dumbly at each
other and then at Harlow. And
then, as a little dancing star of
radiance flicked past them and bob-
bed close to Harlow, the tough
Earth faces changed. Harlow had
tried to explain but it was no use,
all they knew was that the dancing
star was supposed to have been hu-
man once and they did not like it,
they were afraid and they showed
it. All of them, and that included
Kwolek and Garcia and Yrra too,
kept looking at the floating radiance
that had been Dundonald.

"Don't speak aloud to me,
they're getting panicky," came
Dundonald's thought. "Think it
strongly, and I'll get it."

"Which way to Lurluun?"

thought Harlow.

"The way the river flows. But
you can't follow the river, Harlow,
the gorge is too deep. You'll have
to go over the ridge."

"How many men has Taggart got
there?"

"Fourteen," Dundonald answer-
ed. "All heavily armed. Plus eight
more out in his ship."

Harlow spoke aloud to Kwolek.
"Serve out the sidearms."

THE LITTLE STUNNERS
were duly handed out— purely
defensive weapons to be used only
to save the lives of personnel. They
did not have an effective range of
more than a few feet, and they did
not carry a lethal charge — Star
Survey was very tender of native
feelings. The light feel of the thing
in his hand did not give Harlow
much confidence.

He said aloud to the men, "You
know what Taggart did to us back
at ML-441. Here's our chance to
get back at him. He's over that
ridge. We're going over and hit
him."

"All of us, sir?" said Garcia.
"Don't you want a guard left on
the Thetis?"

Harlow shook his head. "Un-
less we overpower that bunch, we
won't be coming back to the Thetis.
We're twenty to their fourteen, but
they've got weapons that make ours
look like water-pistols."

Yrra's face flamed with eagerness
in the fading green light. "Then
I go with you too."

Harlow looked at her dubiously.
"I suppose you have to. Stay close
to me, and obey orders."

He turned toward the patch of
radiance hovering in the air beside
him, shining brighter now that the
green sun was setting and the light
lessening. He thought,

"Dundonald, can you go ahead
and find out where Taggart has
his sentries posted in that city? I
must know exactly before we go
in."

"Yes. I can do that."
And then men of the Thetis
flinched back as the radiance whirl-
ed and spun and then flashed away
through the gathering twilight. A
shining feather, a shooting star, an
incredible will-of-the-wisp, darting
toward the looming black ridge and
disappearing. ♦

Harlow raised his vioce. "We're
moving out right now. Pick them
up and keep them going."

And in a compact column they
started across the sand, keeping a
little away from the river-gorge.
As the last rays of the green star
lit the rock rampart ahead, Harley
surveyed it dubiously. He thought
he saw a way over it but was not
yet sure.

Then he found that they were
following an ancient roadway, one
so drifted over by sand that he

SPACE TRAVEL

would have strayed from it had
there not been stone markers along
it. Back from the road rose dark,
low, rambling structures that look-
ed like scattered villas. The wind
had piled the sand in drifts around
them. And in the deepening twi-
light, there was no sound but the
wind and the river. Nobody had
lived in those villas for thousands
of years.

Yrra, marching beside him, shiv-
ered. "It is evil," she said. "Men
were meant to live like men. Sup-
pose everyone were to become like
the Vorn? All the worlds of the
galaxy would be like this."

It was a frightening thought.
Harlow's mind leaped ahead, in
imagination, to a time in the fu-
ture when the human race mi^ht
vanish utterly and only creatures
like Dundonald would be left, im-
mortal, sterile, building nothing,
creating nothing, existing only for
the thrill of pure knowledge, lovely
bits of force and flame wandering
forever through the reaches of
space, universes without end.

Was that the ultimate goal of a
race who went to space, their final
evolution? Had the first sputniks
and rockets of decades before been
only the first steps of an evolution
that would take man and make
something more than human and
less than human of him?

He forced that eery thought
from his mind. They were nearing

THE GODMEN

the ridge and he saw now that the
ancient roadway climbed along its
face in an easy grade.

"This way/' he called.

The darkness was becoming ab-
solute. There were no stars in the
sky, nothing but the blackness of
the mighty Horsehead in which this
world was embayed. The tiny flash
of his pocket-light was drowned.

But as they climbed higher, Har-
low thought that he saw a steady
pulsing of light from the other side
of the ridge. It grew stronger in
the sky. They reached the crest of
the ridge.

They stood and stared, all their
faces bewildered and strange in the
light that now struck upon them.

"What is it?" whispered Yrra.
A few miles from them, on the
other side of the ridge, a great
column of opalescent light rose sky-
ward. It was most intense at its
base, fading as it ascended. It
seethed and coruscated uncannily,
yet it maintained itself and sent a
strange glow out to touch every-
thing around it.

By that glow, Harlow saw that
the opalescent pillar rose from the
center of a city. Dark roofs, walls,
towers, quivered in the unearthly
glow, and shadows clotted the ways
between them. There was no other
light at all in the silent place, and
no visible movement.

"That's the city of the Vorn,"
he said. "Lurluun. It's dead, all

right."

"But the light?"

"I don't know, I—" Then Har-
low broke off in relief as he saw a
flying, shining star that came rush-
ing up toward them. "Dundonald
can tell us."

Dundonald had something to tell
them, but it was not that. From
that hovering star of radiance, his
thoughts beat at Harlow frantical-
ly.

"It may be too late, Harlow.
They've had a message from
Frayne. Frayne's ship has entered
the Horsehead and is coming on to
this world right now!"

CHAPTER VI

npHE SUDDEN IMMINENCE

■*■ of complete defeat had a curi-
ously numbing effect upon Harlow.
He had come a long way, they all
had, and they were tired, and it
seemed that they were too late and
it had all been for nothing. And
what was he doing so far from
Earth, standing in the night of an
alien world and looking across a
dead, dark city at a pillar of glory
while a floating radiance that had
once been human whispered in his
mind?

Then Harlow's momentary de-
spair was swept away by good,
strong rage. His anger had nothing
to do with his mission, important
as that was. It was ordinary human

anger at being beaten, out-thought,
bested, by someone cleverer than
himself. He would not let Taggart
get away with this!

"Then we've got to hit Taggart
before Frayne's ship arrives," he
said.

He spoke aloud, so that Kwolek
and the others could understand as
well as Dundonald. He asked Dun-
donald,

"Where are Taggart and his sen-
tries ?"

"You see that pillar of light,
Harlow?"

"I see it. What is it?"

"It's the operative beam of the
Converter. It's perpetual, undying.
It springs from the mechanism of
the Converter itself. Enter the base
of the beam and its forces take the
atoms of your body, the very elec-
trons, and rearrange them so that
you become like me — like the Vorn.
But if, as a Vorn, you enter the
upper part of the beam, it triggers
the reverse process and the beam
draws you down and re-arranges
your electrons into solidity, into
ordinary humanity, again."

"You can tell me how it works
later — right now I've got to know
about those sentries!" pressed Har-
low.

"I'm trying to tell you," thought
Dundonald. "Up on the rim of
the Converter itself are two guards
with auto-rifles — in case I try to
emerge. They also can cover every

SPACE TRAVEL

foot of the big plaza in which the
Converter stands. Taggart and his
men have their base in a large
building on the south side of the
plaza. They've got a communic
there and their prisoners — my men
and Brai — are locked up in a win-
dowless room of the building."

"Taggart's awake?"

"Yes. He was talking by com-
munic with his ship out there. Tell-
ing them to hit your ship with mis-
siles the moment you show up,
but not to mistake Frayne's ship
for yours."

Harlow tried to think fast. This
was a soldier's job and he was not
a soldier, Star Survey didn't teach
strategy. Nor was there time to
evolve elaborate plans. He said,

"We'll have to knock out the
two outside sentries before we can
hit Taggart, then. We'll see what
the set-up is. Let's move."

They went forward on the double,
down the descending roadway to-
ward the dark city that brooded
under the loom of the ridge. For
light they had the opalescent rays
of the great column of brilliance
ahead.

Their hurrying feet shuffled the
dust and sand of thousands of
years' drifting, and made echoes
that whispered in the starless night.
The echoes became louder when
they came down into one of the
wide streets that led straight away
between low black buildings to-

THE GODMEN

ward the vertical beam.

Fast and far had Earthmen come
from their little world, thought
Harlow. His own grandfather had
been a man grown when the first
sputnik satellite rushed up from
Earth. The swift snowballing of
technical progress had made one
breakthrough after another and
now a score of Earthmen were
hurrying through the night of an
alien star-world toward something
that could be the biggest break-
through of all.

A deep shiver shook Harlow as
he looked at the shining will-of-
the-wisp gliding beside him, and
then at the dark and silent build-
ings. Men had once lived here as
men. Now they were all gone, dis-
persed as the radiant Vorn far
across the galaxies, and had that
breakthrough been good? He
thought of a secret like that in the
hands of ambitious men, and look-
ed again at the gliding, dancing
star beside him, and he quickened
his pace.

They came to where the street
debouched into the plaza. They
kept close against the side of a
building, and Harlow motioned his
men to stay there in the shadow.
He and Kwolek and Garcia with
the flitting gleam of Dundonald,
moved forward until they could
peer out into the open space.

Plaza, park, shrine — what would
you call it? Harlow wondered.

Whatever it had been called, this
smoothly-paved space was vast. So
vast that far away around its curv-
ing rim, a parked star-cruiser as
large as his own looked small.

"My Starquest" murmured Dun-
donald 's thought.

Harlow spared it only a glance.
His eyes flew to the thing that
dominated the plaza, the city, the
whole planet.

The Converter. The ultimate
triumph of an alien science, the
machine that had made men into —
the Vorn.

IT DID NOT LOOK like a ma-
chine. At the center of the great
paved area there rose a massive,
flat-topped cement pedestal. What-
ever apparatus there was, whatever
perpetual power-source of nuclear
or other nature, was hidden inside
that. A flight of steps on each side
of it led up to the summit of the
eminence.

From the center of this flat sum-
mit, the opalescent beam sprang
upward into the night. At its base,
the beam was a curdled, seething
luminescence that was dazzling to
the eyes, flinging quaking aurora-
rays in a twitching brilliance all
around the plaza. Higher up, the
beam imperceptibly lessened in in-
tensity until far up in the night it
was only a vague shining. The Con-
verter. The ultimate step in space
travel, the gateway to the freedom

SPACE TRAVEL

of the cosmos.

"The guards — see!" rang Dun-
donald's thought, urgently.

With an effort, Harlow wrenched
his mind from the hypnotic fas-
cination of the beam. Now he saw
the two men.

They stood on the unrailed ledge
or balcony that surrounded the
beam, and the beam itself was be-
tween them. Their backs were to
the beam as they could not stand
its brilliance for too long, but they
looked alertly upward and around
them every few moments. Each
of them carried a heavy, old-fash-
ioned auto-rifle, cradled for instant
use.

"They watch in case I try to
come back out through the beam,"
thought Dundonald. "Always, two
watch. And they can see the whole
plaza."

"Where are Taggart and the
others?" whispered Harlow.

"See there — away to your left,
not far from the Starquest. That
square building with the domed
roof."

Harlow saw it. It was not hard
to identify, for light shone out
through the windows of that build-
ing and all the others were dark.

He dropped back a little to
where Kwolek was looking ahead
with wide, wondering eyes.

"You'll take all the men except
Garcia and me," he told Kwolek.
"Circle around and approach that

building from behind. Wait near its
front door until Garcia and I have
got the two sentries up there on
the Converter. Then, when Taggart
and the rest come out, jump them
fast."

"Okay," said Kwolek, but Yrra
had pressed forward and now was
asking Harlow anxiously,
"What of Brai?"
"If we overpower Taggart and
his bunch we can release the pris-
oners easily," Harlow told her.
"But that has to come first." He
added, "You're to stay right here
where you are, Yrra. No argu-
ments! All right, Kwolek, get them
going."

Kwolek did. They made a con-
siderable-looking little body of
dark figures as they slipped away
across the street and disappeared
among the buildings. But Harlow
thought 7 of their little short-range
stunners, and of Taggart's old-
fashioned lethal rifles, and he did
not feel too happy.

He and Garcia were left, with
Dundonald hovering beside them
and Yrra a little behind them. Her
face was both scared and mutinous.
"Listen, Harlow," came Dun-
donald's rapid thought. "You and
Garcia will be seen and shot if you
just barge out onto the plaza. Let
me distract those two sentries
first."

"You? How?"

"You'll see. Wait till they turn

THE GODMEN

their backs toward you."

With that thought, Dundonald
suddenly flashed away from them.
Like a little shooting-star he sped
out and upward across the plaza,
toward the upper reaches of the
towering beam.

Harlow, watching tensely with
Garcia, saw the two sentries up on
the rim of the Converter suddenly
point upward and call to each
other. They were Jooking *up at
the eery, shining star that was
Dundonald, as it flitted high up
around the beam. They had their
rifles ready for instant use now,
and they were facing the beam.

"They think Dundonald's going
to come through the beam — they're
getting set to shoot if he does!"
muttered Harlow. "That gives us
a chance — you take the farther
guard, I'll take the nearest."

"Luck," whispered Garcia, and
went out across the plaza in a swift
run, looking miraculously neat after
all they had been through, his
little stunner glistening in his hand.

Harlow was right after him, tak-
ing a slightly different course. The
two guards up there still had their
backs to him, facing toward the
beam and looking tensely up at
Dundonald's firefly circlings.

Harlow reached the base of the
steps on his side of the Converter.
They were wide steps, their cement
worn by the wind and weather of
thousands of years.

He went quietly up them, his
stunner in his hand. He had to
get close, the little shocker-gadget
had almost no range. He hoped he
would get close enough.

And how many other men have
gone up these steps toward the
beam of the Converter, never to
return? How many men and women
have left their humanity behind
them here to break through into
the wider cosmos?

TIE REACHED THE TOP of
A A the steps, and crouched a mo-
ment. The guard on this side of
the Converter ledge was fifteen
feet away, his back to Harlow.

Harlow waited, his eyes search-
ing for the other guard part way
around the beam. He and Garcia
must make their play at the same
time. But he could see the man
only vaguely, through that bril-
liance. The beam sprang up from
what seemed a transparent plate,
twenty feet in diameter, and at
this close distance it was utterly
dazzling.

He was scared, and he was
sweating, he wanted to jump for-
ward and act but he mustn't com-
promise Garcia's chances, he had
to wait . . .

He waited too long, and every-
thing happened at once.

The other guard, partway a-
round the beam, suddenly crumpled
down onto the cement ledge. Garcia

4 6

SPACE TRAVEL

had come up close behind and had
used his stunner.

Instantly, Harlow jumped for-
ward toward his own man. But this
guard had seen his comrade fall
and he was whirling around, open-
ing his mouth to shout.

He saw Harlow coming and
threw up his rifle to fire. Harlow
triggered the stunner. But he was
running and he was not too used to
weapons, and the invisible conical
electric field of the stunner only
brushed against the guard. The
man staggered, but he did not fall.

Desperately, Harlow ran in. The
stunner's charge was exhausted un-
til it re-cycled , and he had to get
in past that rifle. He hit the guard
in the mouth as he started to yell
an alarm, and then grabbed him.

"Harlow!" rang a wild thought
in his mind. "No time now,
Frayne's coming in — "

Harlow staggered, wrestling
clumsily with the guard on the
wide stone ledge, with the shining
star that was Dundonald dancing
in a frantic way close to him. The
blood was roaring in his ears, and —

No. The roaring was in the sky,
it was getting louder and louder,
a great dark bulk was sinking on
plumes of flame toward the plaza.

Garcia reached him just as Har-
low swung again and hit the guard's
chin. The man collapsed and fell,
his rifle clanging on the cement.

"Harlow! Run!"

The radiance that was Dundon-
ald was whirling with wild urgency
beside him yet, and Harlow heard
his frantic thought. Had it been a
voice he could not have heard, for
the roar of the descending cruiser
drowned everything.

Harlow cried, "Come through,
Dundonald — through the beam!"

"Too late!" was the answering,
agonized thought. "Look!"

The star-cruiser landed on the
plaza, and instantly its lock open-
ed. At the same moment over in
front of the domed square build-
ing, shots rang out as Kwolek and
the Thetis crew rushed Taggart's
men, just emerging from the build-
ing.

Out of the newly-landed cruiser,
men came running. They had auto-
rifles too, and Kwolek and the
Thetis men were caught in a cross-
fire.

Harlow was starting to run for
the steps when Garcia crumpled.

He caught him. The Mexican's
neat tunic was drilled right through
over the heart, and his face was
lax and lifeless.

Bullets screamed off the cement
beside Harlow and he turned and
saw men from the cruiser — two —
now three — of them, shooting at
him.

Dundonald was a star beside him
and the star was screaming in his
mind.

"You can't run now! The beam,

THE GODMEN

Harlow— it's that or death!"

The little battle was over and
they had lost it, and Kwolek and
the Thetis survivors were helpless-
ly surrendering, and the rifles out
there were levelled to rip through
Harlow as he stood silhouetted a-
gainst the blazing beam.

He had a choice, of dying right
there or not dying.

He chose. He threw himself into
the beam.

CHAPTER VII

npHE IMPACT was incredible.
A It was birth and death and
resurrection all happening instan-
taneously and all together, with
the violence of a whirlwind. Har-
low knew fear for a brief instant,
and then the very concept of fear
as he knew it was overwhelmed and
lost in an emotion so new and vast
that he had no word for it.

He never really knew whether or
not he lost consciousness. Perhaps
that was because his whole concept
of "consciousness" changed too, out
of all recognition. There was a
brilliant flare of light all through
him when he entered the misty
glowing pillar of force. The light
was inside him as well as out, ex-
ploding in every cell of his flesh
and bone, brain and marrow. It
was as though for an instant his
whole corporeal being had achieved
a strange state of glory. But after

that instant he was not sure of
light or dark, time or place, being
or not-being. Something unbeliev-
ably weird was happening to his
body. He tried to see what it was
but all he could achieve was a
blurring of color like a kaleido-
scope run mad. He could only feel
and that did not tell him much be-
cause he had never felt anything
like this before and so had no
frame of reference whatever.

Only he knew that all at once he
felt free.

It was a feeling so joyous, so
poignant, that it was almost un-
bearable.

Free.

Free of weight and weariness,
the dragging limitations of the flesh.
Free of want and need, free of
duty, free of responsibility, free
forever of the haunting fear of
death. Never in his life before, even
in its most supreme moments, had
he felt truly free, truly at one with
the universe. It was revelation. It
was life.

He leapt forward, impelled by
the joy that was in him, and then
he sensed that Dundonald was
there waiting for him. It did not
seem at all strange now that Dun-
donald should be a hovering cloud
of sparks, a hazy patch of sheer
energy. It seemed natural and
right, the only sort of form for a
sensible man to have. His thought-
contact with him was clear and in-

4 8

SPACE TRAVEL

stantaneous, infinitely better than
speech.

Well, now you've done it, Dun-
donald thought. How do you feel?

Free! cried Harlow. Free! Free!

Yes, said Dundonald. But look
there.

Harlow looked, not with eyes
any more but with a far clearer
sense that had replaced them.

The men with rifles — Taggart's
men and Frayne's men — stood
looking baffledly toward the Con-
verter, the gateway through which
he, Harlow, had plunged. The
change, then, had been very swift,
almost instantaneous. Kwolek and
the other surviving men of the
Thetis were being disarmed, sur-
rounded by more of Taggart's men.

One of them held Yrra. She was
staring at the glowing misty beam
of the Converter with anguished
eyes and she was crying out a word.
The word was Harlow. It was his
name. He could read her thoughts,
very *dimly compared to Dundon-
ald's, but clear enough. He was as-
tounded by what he read in them.

"I could have told you how she
thought of you/' Dundonald
thought. "But I didn't think I
should."

Some vestiges of Harlow's recent
humanity still remained. He drop-
ped down close to Yrra and she
saw him, her face mirroring shock
and pain but no fear now. There
was another emotion in her far

stronger than fear. The man who
was holding her saw Harlow too
and flinched away, raising his gun.

Harlow ignored him. He spoke
to Yrra's mind. Vm safe, he said.
Don't worry, I'll come back. 1
love you.

Stupid words. Human words.
Everything had failed and he could
not come back any more than Dun-
donald.

The watch over the Converter
would be doubled now, to guard
against any possibility of his and
Dundonald's return during the time
it would take the technicians from
the Cartel ships to find a way of
dismantling and removing the Con-
verter. And once that was done,
the way would be closed to them
forever.

Yrra's voice — or was it her
thoughts? — hurt him with sorrow
and longing. He was not so free
as he had thought. And then he
saw Taggart talking to a neat ef-
ficient pleasant-looking chap with
eyes like two brown marbles, and
he knew that it must be Frayne.
He felt their thoughts, cold, quick,
clear, perfectly ruthless. For the
first time he understood what it
was that set men like that apart
from the bulk of the human race.
Their minds were like cold wells
into which no light or warmth had
ever penetrated. They might count-
erfeit friendship or even love, but
the capacity for them was not real-

THE GODMEN

ly there. All the emotions were
turned inward, bound tightly a-
round the core of Self.

And these were the men who
had beaten him, the men who were
robbing the galaxy of its mightiest
possession.

Harlow became aware that he
could still feel hate.

He sprang at the men. He reach-
ed out to strike them, and the sub-
stance of his being passed through
them like bright smoke. They were
startled, but that was all. And
Taggart smiled.

"Is that you, Harlow? I thought
so. There are disadvantages in not
having a body, aren't there?" He
gestured toward the Converter.
"You can have yours back any
time. Just come through."

And get killed? No use to lie,
Taggart. I can read your mind,

"Well, then, you'll have to wait
and hope that some day I'll get
curious about your kind of life
and come through where we can
meet on equal ground. Though I
wonder just what you could do to
me even so."

Dundonald was close beside Har-
low now. "Come on, you can't do
any good here. As he says, there
are disadvantages."

The fingers Harlow no longer
had itched for a weapon. "I'm go-
ing back through."

"They'll kill you the instant you
appear. You know that."

"But if the two of us came to-
gether — if we came fast and went
for both the guards — "

"Then there'd be two of us dead
instead of one "

"But if there were more of us,
Dundonald. If there were ten,
twenty, a hundred, all at once,
pouring out through the Convert-
er — " The idea grew in Harlow's
mind. The cloud of energy that
was his being pulsed and brighten-
ed, contracting into a ball of ra-
diance. "The Vorn, Dundonald!
That's our answer. The Vorn. This
is their fight as much as it is ours.
They built the Converter. It be-
longs to them, and if the Cartel
takes it they'll be cut off too."

He sensed a doubt in Dundon-
ald 's mind.

"It's true, isn't it?" he cried,
wild with impatience. "You know
it's true. What's the matter?"

''They're so far away," Dundon-
ald said "I've hardly met any of
them — only one, really, and there
was one other I sensed a long way
off. Most of them, I think, have
left this galaxy."

The rest of Dundonald's thought
was clear in his mind for Harlow
to read. The thought was, / doubt
very much if the Vorn will care,

"Then we'll have to make them,"
Harlow said. "There isn't anything
else to try!"

Dundonald sighed mentally. "I
suppose we might as well be doing

SPACE TRAVEL

that as hanging around here watch-
ing, as helpless as two shadows."
He shot away. "Come on then. I'll
take you to where I spoke with one
of them. He may still be in that
sector — he was studying Cepheid
variables, and there were two clust-
ers there that were unusually well
supplied."

Harlow cried. "Wait! How can
I do it, how can I move — »?"

"How did you move before,
when you didn't think of it?" said
Dundonald. "Exert your will. By
will the polarity of your new elec-
tronic body is changed, so that it
can grip and ride the great mag-
netic tides. Will it!"

Harlow did so. And a great wind
between the stars seemed instantly
to grip him and to carry him away
with Dundonald, faster and faster.

TTE WAS FIRST APPALLED,
■•** -"-then exhilarated by it. He kept
Dundonald in close contact, and
the world of the Vorn, the green
star, the black-walled bay, all
simply vanished. There was a
flick of darkness like the wink of
an eyelid and they were through
the Horsehead, skimming above it
like swallows with their wings borne
on the forces of a million suns that
shone around the edges of the great
dark.

This could not be happening to
him. He was Mark Harlow and he
was a man of Earth, not a pattern

of electrons rushing faster than
thought upon the magnetic millrace
currents of infinity. But it was
happening, and he went on and on.

At a speed compared to which
light crawled, they two flashed past
many-colored sparks that he knew
were stars, and then before them
rose up a globular cluster shaped
like a swarm of hiving bees, only
all the bees were suns. The swarm
revolved with splendid glitterings
in the blackness of space, moving
onward and ever onward in a kind
of grand and stately dance, while
within this larger motion the com-
ponent suns worked out their own
complicated designs. The Cepheids
waxed and waned, living their own
intense inner lives, beyond under-
standing.

"He's not here," said Dundonald,
and sped on.

"How do you know?"

"Open your mind. Spread it
wide. Feel with it."

They plunged through the clust-
er. The magneto-gravitational tides
must have been enough to wrench
a ship apart, but to Harlow they
were only something stimulating.
The blaze of the sun-swarm was
like thunder, overpowering, stun-
ning, magnificent. He could strange-
ly sense the colors that shifted and
changed. White, gold, blue, scarlet,
green, the flashing of a cosmic
prism where every facet was a sun.
It passed and they were in the out-

THE GODMEN

er darkness again, the cluster
dwindling like a lamp behind them.

And ahead was a curtain of gold-
en fire hung half across the uni-
verse.

"The other cluster is beyond the
nebula," Dundonald thought.
"Come on—"

Going into the Horsehead had
been like diving against a solid
basalt cliff. This was like plunging
into a furnace, into living flame.
And they were both illusion. The
fires of this bright nebula were as
cold as the dust-laden blackness
of the dark one. But they were in-
finitely more beautiful. The more
diffuse gaseous clouds blazed with
the light of their captive suns in-
stead of blotting them out. Harlow
sped with Dundonald along golden
rivers, over cataracts of fire a
million miles high, through coils
and plumes and great still lakes of
light with the stars glowing in them
like phosphorescent fish.

Then there was darkness again,
and another cluster growing in it,
another hive of stars patched with
the sick radiance of the Cepheids.
And Dundonald was sending out a
silent cry, and suddenly there was
an answering thought, a third mind
in that vastness of space and stars.

Who calls?

They followed that thought-
voice, arrowing in toward a pallid
star that throbbed like the heart of
a dying man. And in the sullen

glare of its corona they met a tiny
flicker of radiance like themselves,
a minute living star — one of the old
Vorn.

"Who comes?" he said. "Who
disturbs me at my work?"

Harlow sensed the strong an-
noyance in this strange mind, too
lofty and remote for anger. He
kept silent while Dundonald ex-
plained, and the mind of the Vorn
kept that remoteness, that lofty
detachment, and Harlow began to
understand that humanity and the
ant-like affairs of men had been left
too far behind for this one to care
now what happened to anything
that wore perishable, planet-bound
flesh.

He was not surprised when the
Vorn answered Dundonald. "This
is no concern of mine."

Harlow's thought burst out. "But
the Converter! You'll never be able
to come back — "

The Vorn regarded him for an
instant with a sort of curiosity.
"You are very new. Both of you.
Go range the stars for a thousand
years and then tell me that these
things matter. Now go — leave me
to my studies."

Dundonald said wearily to Har-
low, "I told you they wouldn't
care." "But they have to," Harlow
said. "Listen," he shouted mentally
at the Vorn, who was already drift-
ing away above the curdled furn-
ace-light of the Cepheid. "Listen,

5 2

SPACE TRAVEL

you think of this, the whole wide
universe, as your country. Well,
it won't be your country any longer
if these men gain control of the
Converter. You reprove us for dis-
turbing you. We're only two. Mil-
lions will come through the Con-
verter, in time. The Vorn will no
longer be alone, or in any way
unique. Where will your solitude
be then, dnd your peace ?"

The Vorn hesitated. "Millions?"
he repeated.

"You better than I should know
how many inhabited worlds there
are in this galaxy. And you should
remember how men fear death and
try in every way to cheat it. The
promise of a physical immortality
will draw whole populations
through the Converter. You know
that this is so."

"Yes," said the Vorn. "I re-
member. I know."

"Then you'll help us? You'll
lead us to others of your kind?"

The Vorn hovered for what seem-
ed to Harlow an anxious eternity,
the pallid fires coiling around him,
his mind closed in so that neither
Harlow nor Dundonald could read
it.

Then the Vorn said, "Come."

He rose and darted away from
the cluster, and Harlow followed
with Dundonald, and the star-
stream of the Milky Way whipped
by like smoke and was gone, and
there was blackness like the night

before creation and emptiness be-
yond the power of the mind to
know.

Gradually, as his new and un-
tried senses adjusted, Harlow be-
gan to be aware of little flecks of
brightness floating in the black
nothing, and he understood that
these were galaxies. So small, he
thought, so terribly far apart, these
wandering companies of stars band-
ed together like pilgrims for their
tremendous journey. Here and
there it seemed that several galax-
ies had joined in a cluster, travel-
ling all together from dark begin-
ning to darker ending, but even
these seemed lost and lonely, their
hosts of bright companions dwarf-
ed to single sparks in that incredi-
ble vastness, like sequins scattered
thinly on a black robe.

The thought-voice of the Vorn
reached him, athrob with hunger
and excitement.

"In all this time, we have never
reached the end — "

The hands of the ape, thought
Harlow, and the eyes of man. They
had never been filled and they
never would be, and this was good.
He looked at the distant galaxies
with the same hunger and excite-
ment he had felt in the Vorn. What
was man for, what was intelligence
for, if not to learn? To see, to
know, to explore, to range over
creations to its uttermost boundar-
ies, always learning, until you and

THE GODMEN

the universe ran down together
and found the ultimate answer to
the greatest mystery of all.

No wonder the Vorn had no in-
terest in going back. With some-
thing of a shock, Harlow realized
that he himself was rapidly losing
it.

Dundonald laughed, the silent
laughter of the mind, edged with
sadness. "Cling hard to your pur-
pose, Harlow. Otherwise we too
will be Vorn."

npHE PACE QUICKENED. Or
"■■ perhaps that was only an illu-
sion. They fled at unthinkable
speeds, cross-cutting time, their
bodiless beings making nothing of
space and the limitations of matter.
They plunged toward a fleck of
brightness and it grew, spreading
misty spiral arms, and the mists
separated into stars, and a galaxy
was there all blazing bright and
turning like a great wheel. They
swept through its billions of suns
as a breeze through grains of sand,
and the Vorn called, and others
answered. There was swift talk
back and forth, and Harlow knew
that some of the minds broke con-
tact and withdrew again into their
privacy, but others did not and
now their little company was larg-
er.

They burst free of the spiral
nebula. The Vorn scattered away
and were gone, to speed the hunt

and spread it wider. Harlow, Dun-
donald and their guide raced on.

There was no time. There was
no distance. Like a drunken angel,
Harlow plunged and reeled among
the island universes, dizzy with the
wheeling of stars beyond counting,
dazed with the dark immensities
between, exalted, humbled, afraid
and yet in a very real sense, for
the first time, not afraid at all.
Several times he strayed, forgetting
everything, and Dundonald called
him back. And then there was a
long last swooping plunge, and a
galaxy, and a flickering darkness
that was somehow familiar, and
Harlow was in a bay on the coast
of a great black nebula, and there
was a green star burning like a
baleful lamp —

Home-star of the Vorn. And from
across the universe the Vorn were
gathering.

They danced against the black
cloud-cliffs like fireflies on a sum-
mer night, and there were very
many of them. They coalesced in
a bright cloud and went streaming
down toward the planet of the
green star in a comet-like rush,
carrying Harlow with them, and
at the last moment he cried out in
sudden terror and regret, "No —
no—"

But there was a pillar of fire
in the night and they streamed
toward it, filling the air with their
eerie brightness. They brushed the

SPACE TRAVEL

upturned faces of Taggart's men
as they passed, and Harlow saw
the faces go white and staring with
panic.

Then they all vanished in a blur
as Harlow spun high, high into
the air and flung himself into the
shaking glorious pillar.

Moth into flame. And his wings
were shorn and crumpled and the
glory died, and the lightness, and
the freedom, as he fell inside that
pillar of force. For as he fell, the
subtle pattern of its forces was
transforming, rearranging, his elec-
trons and atoms back into solidity.
He stumbled out of the pillar, and
he was a man, he was Mark Har-
low again, moving heavily on ce-
ment and not knowing why.

He was not alone. Dundonald
was beside him — the old fleshly
solid Dundonald — and all around
them there were others. Tall men
whose lean, spare flesh seemed even
now to have a certain glow, al-
most a transparency, as though
the long ages in another form had
wrought some permanent, subtle
change. Their eyes were strange,
too — as remote and brilliant as the
stars they had followed across the
endles void. There was one taller,
sterner, more commanding than the
rest, and he seemed to be the lead-
er, as perhaps he had been.

"Heavy, slow, mortal," muttered
Dundonald beside him. "Why did
we have to come back?"

Dim memory, struggling to re-
turn, warned Harlow of danger.
He cringed in the expectation of
bullets tearing into his now-vul-
nerable solid body. But there were
no shots, and the whole plaza held
a confusion of outcries that ex-
pressed only fear.

Suddenly he realized that he
could not see the plaza. It was ob-
scured in a bright fog, a mad whirl-
ing coruscation through which the
tall Vorn men moved with calm
certainty. Harlow and Dundonald
faltered, confused, and then they
realized that not all the Vorn had
come through the Converter.

By hundreds, by thousands, they
had settled upon the plaza in a
glowing cloud that blinded and ter-
rified the men who were there on
guard, and the others who had run
out at the first cry of alarm. They
carried weapons, but they could
not see to shoot them. Bright mists
clotted around them, and the tall
quiet men from the Converter mov-
ed among them quickly, with a
frightening air of efficiency. They
had come back a long way to do a
certain thing, and they wanted it
done and over without delay. The
terrified Earthmen were disarmed,
swept up, herded together, and held
with their own weapons in the
hands of the human Vorn.

Dundonald caught Harlow's arm
and pointed suddenly. "Taggart!"

He appeared through a thinning

THE GODMEN

of the bright mist, with a heavy
rifle in his hands and a cobra look
of fury on his face. He levelled
the rifle at the dim shadows of the
human Vorn in the mist, where
they herded the Earthmen. He was
bound to hit some of his own men
if he fired, but Harlow sensed that
he did not care. Harlow shouted
a warning and ran forward.

Taggart heard him and wheeled.
He smiled. "This was your idea,
wasn't it, Harlow? Well—" He
brought the rifle to bear.

Harlow launched himself in a
low dive for Taggart's knees.

He heard the rifle go off. He
felt the impact as he hit Taggart,
and a second jarring crash as Tag-
gart fell backward and they both
landed on the pavement. But there
was no fight. Hands lifted him up,
while other hands hoisted Taggart
less gently to his feet.

The voice of a Vorn spoke in-
side his mind. "That was rash and
needless. We were ready for him."
Harlow turned and saw the tall
leader beside him. He knew the
man was speaking to him as he
would have spoken before he return-
ed through the Converter, and it
dawned on Harlow that none of
the re-created Vorn had spoken a
word aloud, which was one reason
for the weird silence in which all
this had been done.

The Vorn leader smiled. "But it
was brave, and we thank you. We

are glad that we deflected the
weapon in time."

Harlow whispered, "So am I."
He wiped his forehead.

The tall men led Taggart away.
And the bright mist began to lift
as the Vorn withdrew a little.

The strange, silent battle was
over. Taggart, Frayne and their
crews were captive. Dundonald's
and Harlow's crews had been re-
leased, and now the tall Vorn men
relinquished their weapons and
their captives to the men of the
Star Survey.

Yrra was running out across the
plaza, calling his name.

Harlow ran to meet her, catch-
ing her in his arms. He kissed her,
and overhead the glowing, dancing
stars that were the Vorn hung in
the deepening twilight of their
ancient world, as though they were
waiting.

He said to Dundonald, "Your
ship can take word to the Survey.
We'll need more ships here, more
men to guard the Converter per-
manently — "

The voice of the Vorn leader
spoke again in his mind.

"There will be no need. Before
we leave, we will make very sure
that the Converter is not used a-
gain."

NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and
the Vorn were leaving. Eagerly
the tall, strange men crowded up

SPACE TRAVEL

the steps of the Converter. Joyous-
ly, they stepped into the blazing
beam, and light, free, and joyful
they sped out of the upper beam as
radiant stars to join the hosts of
other firefly stars that waited.

Harlow stood with Yrra and
Dundonald and watched them.
There were tears in Dundonald's
eyes, and he took a half-step to-
ward the stairs.

"No," said Harlow. "No, you
can't, you mustn't."

Dundonald looked at him. "You
weren't free as long as I was, you
dont know. And yet you're right.
I can't."

A door in the cement side of the
Converter — a hidden door they had
not known before existed — opened
and out of it came that tall Vorn
man who had been their guide. His
thought came to them.

"You will be wise to remove
yourselves from the Converter, be-
fore the last of us depart."

Harlow understood, and a great
sadness took him. "The greatest
secret of the galaxy— to be destroy-
ed. Yet it's better."

"It will exist again," came the
Vorn's thought.

Startled, Harlow looked at him.
"Again? How-^?"

"You too, you men of Earth,
will someday build a Converter.
When you first stepped off your
planet, you set yourself upon a
road that has no turning-back.

You will go farther and farther,
as we did, until you hunger for the
farthest shores of the universe, and
those you can only reach as we
did."

Harlow wondered. Would it be
so? Or would Earthmen take a
different road altogether?

Yrra tugged fearfully at his arm
and spoke to him, and he looked
up to find they were alone. The
last of the Vorn was climbing the
steps toward the beam.

He awoke to their danger, and
turned and took Dundonald's arm.
Dundonald seemed mazed with his
own thoughts, his face pale and
drawn by a wild regret, and Har-
low had to drag him back with
them across the plaza.

They turned by the ships, and
looked back. No human figure now
was visible by the Converter. But
out of the upper beam sped a last
radiant Vorn to join the hosts of
others that swirled in the darkness.

A dull red spark appeared in the
side of the massive cement pedestal
that held the Converter. It was not
flame, but a force unleashed by
whatever fusing device the Vorn
had left. It spread, and devoured,
and the supernal beam that had
been a gateway to the infinite for
thousands of years flickered and
dimmed and went out. The hungry
redness ate all the Converter, and
it too went out, and all was dark.
Except —

THE GODMEN

"Look!" cried Yrra, in awe.

Overhead the Vorn were circling,
a radiant will-of-the-wisp host, a
maelstrom of misty shooting-stars
as though they bade farewell for-
ever to the world of their birth.

And then they shot skyward,
joyously, a great plume of rushing
little stars outward bound for the

farthest shores of creation, for the
freedom and wonder of all the uni-
verse, time without end.

It was not for Earthmen, Har-
low thought. They had their own
road, and must follow it. And yet,
as he looked up, he felt that his
own eyes held tears.

THE END

'And now for our mystery guest

SPECIAL SCIENCE FEATURE

Pro

arete

epor<

l On

SPACE MEDICINE

JJenry Bott

Research Engineer

A man can die in many ways; it's the job
of our space medical men to foresee the perils
waiting in the void - and lick them beforehand!

IT IS HARDLY POSSIBLE to-
day to pick up a newspaper
without seeing the ubiquitous
phrase "space medicine." That this
should be a natural consequence of
all the excitement over Explorers
and Sputniks and talk of Lunar
trips is to be expected. Unfortunate-
ly one would obtain the impression
that space medicine is an utterly
new subject rising full-blown from
technology as Venus rose from the
sea. This is not the case.

Space medicine is simply one
more link in the long chain of sci-
entific development that has ac-
companied men in their irrepressible
urge to change their environment.
For space medicine is simply an ex-

tension of the already numerous
techniques and methods that men
use to make it possible for them to
enter domains as diverse as coal
mines, oceans and the stratosphere.
Those men who first noted that
asphyxiation resulted in an un-
changed atmosphere were learning
a first step in the medical path that
lead to the practice of space medi-
cine. Submariners who discovered
that despite adequate oxygen sup-
ply, carbon dioxide must be re-
moved, were also providing an im-
portant piece of knowledge to be
used in the path to the stars.

And so it is possible to select
thousands of discoveries at random
to show that the technique of what

we call space medicine, is nothing
new, but a continuous growth and
extension of medical, scientific
knowledge.

There is almost no region so in-
hospitable to human habitation that
it has not been visited by human
beings. The Arctic, icily hostile, the
fiery desert, the silent depths of
the sea, the airless loftiness of the
stratosphere — these regions have
been probed.

Thus the tender, fragile com-
bination of flesh and bone which
constitute a human being has been
exposed to conditions which in no
sense can be called "natural en-
vironment." Man's planned probing
of space differs only in degree, not
in kind, from his probing of the
Earth. It is true that the problems
are seemingly exaggerated, that
emptiness and zero-gravity are un-
like anything he has encountered
before. But he has never conquered
fiercely inimical environments by
adapting to them, by changing his
skin or eyes or body temperature
to match them. Instead, he has, in
one way or another, surrounded his
body with his natural habitat, air
and warmth, and gone on from
there. A submarine is a cocoon
housing men in relative comfort
despite the fierce pressures and icy
temperatures outside of the vessel.
A stratospheric air-liner too, wraps
its passengers in heat and air and

light.

It is evident then from these ex-
amples that the problems of outer
atmosphere, of "fringe-space, " and
of space itself, are not very differ-
ent from those of more familiar
domains. They are only harder and
more intransigent.

Schools of Space Medicine, such
as those of Randolph Air Base in
Texas, or the Wright Aeromedical
Laboratory, are the offspring of
conventional aviation schools con-
cerned with aero-medical problems.
Their dimensions have been vastly
enlarged however. Twenty and
thirty years ago there were pioneer
schools of space medicine in Eng-
land, Germany, France and Russia.
Far-seeing American doctors of
the time were writing obscure lit-
tle papers, often laughed at by
their colleagues.

All of these efforts, each adding
an infinitesimal but important scrap
of knowledge, led to the solution of
many problems. For example, the
question of food, of air, of water
to be supplied to the inhabitants of
an artificial satellite or of a space-
ship, really no longer belong to
the domain of space medicine. We
can think of these problems as be-
ing basically solved, and the hard-
ware to supply these vital necessi-
ties already exists somewhere in
the "top secret" files of the world,
probably — certainly — on both sides

SPACE TRAVEL

of the Iron Curtain.

Many newspaper accounts have
been given recently about experi-
menters isolating themselves for
long periods of time in absolutely
synthetic environments, their every
need being supplied automatically,
artificially, remotely and mechani-
cally. Invariably these men have
emerged from their ordeal in
sound shape. Bottled oxygen and
water and food can supply the hu-
man calorimeter.

What then, are the real prob-
lems confronting the practitioners
of space medicine?

If doctors are not concerned with
supplying men with air and food
and water and not concerned with
keeping them warm or cool as the
case may be, what then is the need
of space medicine? In a phrase, if
the problems have been solved, why
space medicine?

By now of course the answers to
these rhetorical questions are fami-
liar to everyone. Tough, thick-
skinned man is going to be con-
fronted in space by an environment
drastically changed in three ways,
three ways which have never be-
fore been encountered. For long
periods of time men will be in " free-
fall" or a state of weightlessness;
for long periods of time they will
be exposed to cosmic radiation of
the rawest, most intense kind, and
last but not least, they will be ex-

posed to a more recently discovered
menace — strong, incredibly intense
x-radiation. It is not yet clear
whether this latter radiation is di-
rectly from the sun or whether it
is secondary radiation caused by
cosmic ray or electron bombard-
ment of the metal of the space
vessel. This latter discovery is a
product of the American satellite
program.

Space medicine, strangely enough,
is dealing in a sense with problems
it cannot solve until it encounters
them. We are speaking of course of
the problem of gravitationlessness.
Lethal radiation can be simulated
— that is hardly the word! — by the
fierce atomic radiations we can
create on Earth.

T ET US CONSIDER the prob-
-■— ' lem of "free-fall," since this is
of great concern to medical people.
In recent years, "free-fall" has been
experienced for brief periods of
time by parachutists, pilots under
certain conditions, and even partial-
ly by ordinary folk on roller coast-
ers. Almost universally, no serious
ill-effects have been reported except
for minor nausea, and some have
even gone so far as to laud the
effect for the exuberant sense of
freedom it induces. But medical
men, more familiar with the sensi-
tivity of the human body, are not
satisfied with these brief excursions

SPACE MEDICINE

and even briefer reports.

Except when swimming — and
partially then — men are continually
aware of the gravitational field of
our planet. This gravitational field
which is of course directed toward
the center of the Earth provides a
continual frame of reference for
the position of the human body.
So important is the frame, that Na-
ture has built into us special sen-
sory organs, delicate liquid cham-
bers in the inner ear, the function
of which is to sense deviation of
the body from the vertical, and
through corrective action of mus-
cles actuated by signals consisting
of nervous impulses sent along
motor nerves, so to maintain us
bifurcated bipeds erect. The nausea
and dizziness accompanying sea or
airsickness, or damage to these sen-
sory organs, are Nature's way of
assuring verticality — and hence
readiness.

As has so clearly and often been
pointed out, space flight will re-
quire that human beings remain in
a state of "free-fall" for long periods
of time. Nothing in their experience
on Earth has prepared them for
this state. One of the problems of
space medicine, one of the most im-
portant problems, is to make sure
that men are prepared to meet this
condition. Perhaps it should be ex-
plained that medicine is less worried
about the ability of men to adapt

for long periods of time to this
condition than it is about the short-
term effects. It is concerned that
during crucial manuevering and
controlling periods, rapid conditions
of free-fall alternating with "g" or
multiple "g" conditions will so af-
fect human beings that they will be
unable to remain masters of their
control panels.

There are medical men who will
dispute the possibility of men a-
dapting for long periods to free-fall.
They say that men will be unable
to stand this state or endure its
discomforts. The view however of
the larger number of the fraternity
is different. It feels that while some
persons may not adapt for inherent
physiological or psychological rea-
sons, those selected for the space
journeys will have little trouble
once they are familiar with the con-
dition.

Why argue? you ask. Put the
question to the only neutral arbiter
— test. This would be fine, except
that so far no one has found a
satisfactory way to simulate free-
fall. You can do it for very short
periods in ways we have mentioned.
The classic current technique is to
put a high speed rocket or jet
plane in a trajectory which for a
matter of seconds permits its oc-
cupants to be truly in free-fall.
Most of you have seen motion pic-
tures of the interior of such planes,

SPACE TRAVEL

filled with "floating" objects.

Unfortunately, these times are so
short, no real answer as to how the
human frame will behave, can be
formulated. Ingenious suggestions
to circumvent this barrier to creat-
ing a state of no-gravity here on
E ar th— suspending subjects in wa-
ter tanks etc.— really provide no
satisfactory information.

Doctors of space medicine are
awaiting what will amount to their
most important source of informa-
tion on this subject— the launching
of the rocket plane X-15. This half-
breed of rocket and airplane will
probably expose its pilot to the
longest time in free-fall that has
ever been recorded. Unfortunately
the event is a year or so away.

The combined studies however of
both "no-g" and "high-g" frames
of reference conditions for human
beings, tend to indicate that human
beings will endure them. Critics
who like to point out the near-im-
possibility of controlling a space-
ship when nauseated or de-oriented
by "no-g", are failing to consider
the fact that a rocket, man-carrying
or inert, does not require any other
kind of guidance but that of auto-
matic controls. Admittedly these
controls must be sophisticated, but
by the time men are ready to take
the space trip, those controls will
be robots of the first order.

In all fairness, it must be admit-

ted that the medical problem least
known about from the standpoint
of actual test, is that of free-fall.
Only a limited experience buttresses
our hypotheses. Fortunately how-
ever there is nothing in our physio-
logy that indicates we cannot en-
dure—and eventually perhaps en-
joy — weightlessness.

The other major medical prob-
lems — cosmic radiation and secon-
dary x-rays — are of a different
stripe. Medicine is well equipped to
cope with these questions. Science
merely needs data on their inten-
sity. That is an over-simplification
of course, but the recent years of
the nuclear bomb tests have told us
a great deal about the effects of
high intensity atomic beams on the
chemistry of the body.

We knew— although this infor-
mation seemingly is not as widely
distributed as it should be— down
to the last milli-roentgen-second,
how much cell-shattering radiation
the human body can endure. By
that I mean, how much of such
radiation is required for death, or
incapacitating injury, and how long
we can endure exposure. The de-
bate about the subject rages— just
as it does about nuclear tests — a-
round the question of how much
radiation the body can sustain with-
out damage and by the phrase
"without damage" is meant genetic
injury and cancer (severe) culpa-

SPACE MEDICINE

bility. These questions are naturally-
being resolved at this very moment.
The probe-rockets of the Explorers
and the Vanguard are radiating
back to Earth the necessary, vital
data concerning the intensity of
cosmic radiation in space. Armed
with this information and with the
knowledge being gleaned in the
laboratories on Earth, very accur-
ate estimates of the time men can
spend in space will be obtained.

A RECENT and terrifying addi-
-** tion to this picture has been
announced. It is a discouraging, but
not despairing piece of information.
Several scientists pointed this out
many years ago, but apparently
this is first confirmation of the con-
dition. We refer to the fact that
the shell of a rocket when struck
by sufficiently intense or penetrat-
ing cosmic radiation or sun-elec-
trons, produces secondary radiation
— "hard x-rays". These rays are
the multiplied effect of cosmic radi-
ation. Being struck by a particle
of cosmic radiation is bad enough,
but the cell damage it might do is
not necessarily great. On the other
hand that same particle striking a
piece of metal and producing a
dense shower of secondary x-rays
can destroy large numbers of cells.
The effect is much that of an ex-
ploding shell which is capable of
spreading its destruction over a

larger volume than that of a shell
which is solid and which must hit
directly what it is to injure.

Present crude estimates by medi-
cal experts suggest that each hu-
man being in a hypothetical rocket
might require an additional shield-
ing of as much as a hundred pounds
of lead, a heart-breaking handicap
where every gram of excess weight
penalizes the rocketeers. It might
be added that this estimate could
be too conservative and that much
greater shielding might be required,
because it is possible for thin lead
barriers to act as sources of secon-
dary x-radiation also.

Because of exploratory work
done by the medical teams of nu-
clear physics a very clear picture
has been established of the level
of tolerance to radiation that a
human being is subject to. This
information, in the hands of the
space medicine people is of the ut-
most use since they can insist that
potential man-carrying rockets meet
"the specs".

Another danger, thoroughly eval-
uated by the space medicine
groups, is that of explosive decom-
pression. This ogre, beloved of
early science fiction writers, is
probably one of the least threaten-
ing of all of the worries of space
travel, not because it is incapable
of damaging a person, but because
it is so improbable statistically. To

SPACE TRAVEL

begin with, the probability of a
rocket being struck by a meteor is
remarkably small. The Explorers
have confirmed this. But should
this almost unthinkable event occur,
that is, should a small meteor
"hole" a space ship sufficiently to
cause the rapid loss of its air, the
space medical people have an ans-
wer. The answer is of course that
the ship will not be pressurized to
Terran standards of fourteen and
seven-tenths pounds per square
inch. Instead it will be pressurized
only to about three p-s-i of pure
oxygen — after all, of what use is
the extra nitrogen? This much low-
er pressure means of course that
the escape of air is much less rapid
and the presumption is that very
rapid repairs can easily be affected.
Just one of the little products of
space medicine, this knowing that
the human respiratory system can
exist and flourish under the most
amazing of circumstances.

Space medicine is also concerned
with much more prosaic matters
than these. For example, what a-
bout sun burn? Intense solar radia-
tion can inflict painful burns, and
above all it can damage the retina
severely — to blindness — if looked
at directly. In space the merciful
filter of atmosphere is missing. Any
ports or portholes will have to be
suitably shielded and the appro-
priate materials have already been

weighed.

An aspect of space medicine
which receives altogether too much
attention in some respects, is the
psychological, at least in the news-
papers which make much of the
problems of living amicably in a
group aboard confined quarters
such as those of a spaceship or a
submarine. Previous articles of this
kind have emphasized the noble as-
pect of an endeavor of this type,
and stressed the honor and glory
that will be associated with it.
Perhaps when space travel becomes
comparatively commonplace, we
might fear the psychopath or the
mentally incompetent or disturbed
who somehow finds his way aboard.
But the stringent weeding-out and
selection that will cover the choos-
ing of a space crew precludes any
real worry over this remote situa-
tion. Nevertheless, it is interesting
to note with what elan the experi-
menters have emerged from their
closed capsules after weeks in con-
finement, sustained by the sense of
honor and participation. Eventually
one can foresee however a role for
psychological investigation. Its pre-
sent one is primarily concerned
with the possible disturbance in
judgment, especially visual, that
the remarkable situation of being
truly space-borne might induce in
an impressionable pilot.

SPACE MEDICINE

(\NE OF THE MOST frustrat-
^'ing aspects of space medicine
is that it is not concerned really
with a new environment and man's
reaction to it, save in very special-
ized ways. Thus, a man must be
in either a space ship, or a space
suit, that is, he must carry a por-
tion of his Terran environment
with him no matter if he is on the
Moon, in deep space, or contem-
plating a landing on Titan. The
opportunity for medicine to ob-
serve a man contesting a totally
alien situation is lacking. So far as
can presently be discerned there is
almost no probability at all of any
planet or satellite in the Solar
System being habitable in the or-
dinary sense of that word. That
means, that although there is likely
no spot in the Solar System which
will not ultimately be visited by
men, there is no place where they
will go without a harness of space-
suit or spaceship. You cannot step
into a vacuum or an atmosphere of
liquid methane!

The sad truth is that we seem to
be doomed forever, so far as the
Solar System goes, to staying with-
in our terellas, to the disgust of
medical people who would like to
see a planet with a rich, oxygen-
laden atmosphere against which
man could test his lungs and meta-
bolism. The more optimistic will
wait for the interstellar trips and

hope for the best.

Can you imagine the interest
with which space medical research-
ers would greet the presentation for
study of an alien strain of bacteria,
perhaps even the flora and fauna of
another time and place? Alas, this
seems impossible save on the most
modest of scales, such as, say, lich-
ens from Mars, trace-plants from
Luna, and perhaps some — at pre-
sent inconceivable — remarkable ani-
mal life from Venus.

To watch the scientists of the
space medicine effort is not a very
exciting experience unless you see
their efforts through the eyes of
your imagination. Scientific labora-
tories for almost any purpose look
alike. Only when you realize what
the goal is, do you feel impr
by what is going on in say, the
Department of Space Medicine at
Randolph Air Base. As an example
of this, consider the program being
conducted by several scientists
working under contract to the Air
Force.

This effort is dedicated to the
proposition that a biological ap-
proach to the study of air — and to
a certain extent food — supply, as
well as the complete utilization of
body wastes, is superior to the
purely mechanical and chemical.
In particular, elaborate studies are
being undertaken of species of al-
gae capable not only of consuming

SPACE TRAVEL

carbon dioxide and releasing oxy-
gen, but also of converting urine
and other body wastes directly into
potable liquids! This cannibaliza-
tion of excreta may sound unplea-
sant from an aesthetic point of
view, but it is of vital importance
to the technology of approaching
space flight. As a matter of fact,
the astonishing efficiency of biologi-
cal organisms lend themselves more
easily to "closed-cycle" regenera-
tive systems than do the complexes
of chemical engineering. If a com-
plete man-algae-bacteria-chemical
ecology can be evolved by the stu-
dents of space medicine, it is likely
that the system can be packaged
into much less space than any equi-
valent chemical apparatus.

Another and extremely important
concern of space medicine is the
space suit. As previous articles have
pointed out, a space suit is a much
more sophisticated apparatus than
the simple diving suit with which
it is so often compared. A space
suit is a terella not very different
in its requirements than a space
ship or a space station in terms of
what it must do to support the
precious life it encases.

Space medicine of course, is
medicine first. Consequently dis-
coveries and developments that
furnish information of any kind
about the workings of the human
body in both stress, and at ease,

are of value. An important opera-
tion of space medicine is simply
the study and awareness of what
is going on in general medicine.
For example, it is not likely that
persons with weak hearts will be
able to endure high accelerations
such as are encountered in rocket
ascensions.

How can you make sure that
latent heart trouble in apparently
perfectly healthy spacemen, won't
suddenly appear to plague the ex-
peditions to the satellites? Natural-
ly medicine will be relied upon to
provide the tests necessary to de-
tect incipient or latent illness of
any kind. This is but straight medi-
cine, yet an important part of the
total space medical effort.

A NOTHER PROBLEM of space
**' travel which rarely disturbs the
novelists but which is of real signi-
ficance even today, is the question
of exercise. Of all human activities
it is hard to imagine one which re-
quires more alertness, yet less
physical effort, than that of pilot-
ing or controlling a space vessel.
Because every gram of excess
weight must be dispensed with, the
volume of a space ship cannot be
very great. In fact we have seen
pictures of proposed spaceships
which allot little more space to the
pilot than the volume his body
occupies. The rest is instrumenta-

SPACE MEDICINE

tion. How do you prevent a rela-
tively motionless human body from
going "dead", from succumbing to
the familiar prickly pains of shut-
off blood circulation? If youVe ever
been forced into a cramped posi-
tion for any length of time you
can appreciate this enervating ex-
perience. To counter this trouble,
space medical scientists are work-
ing on massaging mechanisms which
can simulate exercises. The classic
approach has been to consider a
close fitting suit, which, under pul-
sations of air pressure, can offer
the muscles forces against which
they can work. Even so this seems
unsatisfactory. Special training of
pilots, not unlike the practices of
the Indian Yogis, may be required
to prevent actual degeneration of
the body through failure to exer-
cise.

Similarly, it has been found that
living in sealed environments tends
to induce skin disorders and to
some extent nervous disorders. To
cope with these problems you must
know their causes. This is one of
the reasons that the most useful,
important and common piece of
scientific equipment in the schools
of space medicine, is the terella
or sealed chamber which simulates
the atmosphere of a space ship.

An important branch of medicine
concerned with space effects, is
that which emphasizes drugs —

drugs for every purpose from re-
lieving a headache or inducing
euphoric sleep to curing a rabid
infection. In a spaceship or a satel-
lite — at least for a long time — a
full-fledged hospital will be a long
way off.

The development of emergency
escape equipment for use in the
upper atmosphere and its attendant
problems of protecting the escapee,
is also a current problem of space
medicine. Circumstances can be
imagined under which a ferry
rocket pilot can parachute to Earth
if he is sufficiently far into the
upper air. Medical spacemen pro-
vide this man with a chance to
parachute to Earth! Automatically
this requires environmental pro-
tection, suitable parachuting, and
some guarantee of landing alive.
This is the proper province of space
medicine.

The work of the "doctors of
space" will not end when the first
men go into space. On the contrary,
it will continue even more inten-
sively. It will go on with much
more data than is now available.
We cannot even imagine what prob-
lems will confront the medical men
who talk with the crews who settle
the space stations and land on the
Moon. But one thing is certain,
space medicine is not a passing
activity. Someday there will be a
hospital on the Moon! . . .

He was scared and he was mad. He didn't
mind killing, but he didn't like murder. There
was a place for one but not the other. It was —

His First Day At War

J^arlan L^lii

id on

THE FIRST NEEDLE of the
"day" came over Copernicus
Sector at 0545 . . . and seven
seconds. The battery commander .on
White's line was an eager-beaver.
His bombardment cut short the
coffee-pause Black's men had plan-
ned to enjoy till at least 0550.
When the hi-fi in the ready dome
screeched — a vocal transformation
of the sonorad blip indicating a
projectile coming through — the
Black men looked at one another in
undisguised annoyance, and bang-
ed their bulbs onto the counters.

Someone muttered, "Spoil sport! "
and his companions looked at him
and laughed; obviously a repple
officer, fresh from the Academy.

One of the veterans, who had
been with the outfit when Black
had been Black One and Black
Two — before the service merger —
chuckled deep in his throat. He
began to dog down the bubble of
the pressure suit. But before the

plasteel bowl was settled in place,
he gibed, "Cookie-boy, you shoulda
been up here when White rung in
a full-blooded Cherokee named
Grindbones or somethin'. You 'da
been on the line a'reddy at 0500.
He was lobbin' 'em in solid by this
time . . . had a hell of a job
gettin' him croaked." He chuckled
again, and several other officers
nodded in remembrance.

The young lieutenant addressed
as "Cookie-boy" turned an interest-
ed glance on the older man. "How
did you manage to kill him? Full-
day batteries at double strength?
Spearhead through the craters?"

The veteran winked at his
friends, and said levelly, "Nope.
Easier'n that."

The young lieutenant's attention
was trapped.

"Waited till he went down, and
had a goon squad put a blade into
his neck. Real quick. Next day,
had our coffee without sweat."

The young lieutenant was still.
His face. gradually became a mask
of disbelief and horror. "You . . .
you mean you ... oh, come on,
you aren't serious!"

The veteran stared at him coldly.
"Sonny, you know I'm serious."
He dogged down the pork-bolts on
his helmet. He was out of the con-
versation.

Yet the lieutenant continued to
protest. He stood in the center of

the ready dome, his helmet under
his arm, his other arm thrown to-
ward the rounded ceiling in a
theatrical pose, and blurted, "But
—but that's illegal! When they
declared the Moon a battlefield,
that was the reason, I mean, what's
the sense of using up here to fight,
if we still kill each other down
there, I mean — "

"Oh, shut up, will you, for
Christ's sake! " It was a lean, angu-

lar-faced Major with a thread-scar
from a single-beam across the brutal
cut of his jaw. "This wasn't war,
you young clown. This was a mat-
ter of a man who fought, and stuck
too closely to the rules. What you
learned in the Academy was all
floss and fine, man, but grow up!
Use your noodle. What they taught
you there doesn't always apply out
here.

"When someone crosses too many
wheat fields, he's bound to find a
gopher hole. This Indian stepped
in one of those, that's all."

The Major turned away, dogged
down, and joined the rest of the
line company's officers at the exit-
port. The young lieutenant stood
alone, watching them, still mut-
tering to himself. For with the other
men on intercom only, they could
not hear what he was saying:

"But the war. The— the war.
They said we wouldn't chew up the
Earth any more. The war ... up
here it's so much cleaner, a man
can fight or die or . . . but — but
they said they killed him on his
way down.

"He was going home, to Earth,
and they killed him — "

The Major turned with sluggish
movement in the pressurized dome,
and waved a metal-tooled gauntlet
at the lieutenant. It was time to
move to the units.

The lieutenant hurriedly dogged
down, and joined the group. The

SPACE TRAVEL

veteran officer who had first
spoken, turned the younger man
around with rough good humor,
checking the pork-bolts. Then he
slapped the lieutenant on his shoul-
der with a comradely gesture, and
they went into the exitport togeth-
er.

The hi-fi had been screeching
constantly for a full three minutes.

Outside, the Blacks and the
Whites went into the five thousand
and fifty-eighth day of the war.
That particular war.

'-pHE NEEDLES CAME across
A all that early morning. In the
dead black of the Darkside, their
tails winked briefly as vector rock-
ets shifted them on course. No
sound broke across the airless
cratered surface, but the tremors
as each missile struck rang through
the bowels of the dead satellite like
so many gong-beaters gone mad.

Where they struck great gouts
were ripped from the grey, cadaver-
ous dust of the surface. Brilliant
flashes lived for microinstants and
then were gone, for without air
there could be no flames. Where the
needles struck, and the face of the
moon tore apart, new craters glared
blindly up at space.

At 0830 on the dot, the first
waves of armored units spread out
from the ragged White line near
Sepulchre Crater and advanced
across the edge of the Darkside,

HIS FIRST DAY AT WAR

into the blinding glare of the Light-
side. Vision ports sphinctered down
into narrow slits; filters that dim-
med the blaze of light clicked over
the glassene ports; men donned
special equipment, and snapped
switches that cut in conditioning
units and coolant chambers — and
turned off the feverishly working
heaters.

The armored crabs came first,
sliding along, hugging the contours
of the moon's face, raising and low-
ering themselves on stalk-like plas-
teel rods.

The Black batteries detected
their coming, but not their nature,
and the first barrages were low-
level missiles that zoomed silently
through the glaring sunlight, pass-
ed completely over the crabs, and
shusssssed off into the Darkside,
and space, where they would circle
aimlessly till the men from Or-
dnance Reclamation went out with
their dampening nets and sucked
the missiles into the cargo hatches
of the ships.

But as the crabs flopped and
skittered their way toward the
Black line, the sonorad was able
to distinguish more easily what
they were. The cry went up in the
tracking cells buried deep under
the pumice of the planet, and new
batteries were readied /launched!
Doggie-interceptors screamed silent-
ly from their tubes, broke the sur-
face of the moon like skin divers

reaching water's surface, and began
to follow the line of terrain, hump-
ing over rises, slipping into craters,
always moving out.

The first ones made contact.

Within the crabs, the shriek of
rending metal was a split microsec-
ond ahead of the roar and flash of
the doggie exploding. Great gouts
of flame roared out angrily . . .
and were gone as quickly, leaving
in their place a twisted, bloody
scrapheap where the crab had been.
Another doggie struck. It caught
the crab and lifted it backward
and up on its stiltlegs, and then it
exploded violently. Pieces of bodies
were thrown two hundred feet into
the airless nothing above the moon,
and fell back soddenly.

All along the line the doggie's
were tracking their prey and
demolishing them. On the far right
flank, one crab managed to train
its twenty-thread on an incoming
doggie, and exploded the missile
before it hit. But it was a short-
lived victory, for two others, com-
ing on collision courses, zeroed in
and struck simultaneously. The
flash was seen fifteen miles away,
the roar trembled the ground for
thirty miles.

But White's offensive for the day
was just beginning. In streaming
waves the foot-soldiers were coming
up behind the crabs. They were
small pips on the sonorad units in
Black GHQ, and though they could

SPACE TRAVEL

not tell if what was coming was
human or mechanical, Black con-
tinued to send out the doggies.

It was a waste of missiles; pre-
cisely what White had been count-
ing on. The doggies homed in, and
exploded, hundreds of them, each
finding a lone man and atomizing
him so quickly, no bit of pressure
suit, weapon or flesh could be
found. The missiles came down
like hail, and where each struck, a
man died horribly, without time to
scream, with his body exploding
inward in a frightful implosion of
power and fire. Hundreds died all
along the line, and as the doomed
foot-soldiers drew the fire, the jato
teams soared up from White Cen-
tral and streaked before little gouts
of flame, toward the Black peri-
meter.

Each man wore a harness over
his pressure suit, with a jet unit,
to drive him across the airlessness.
While their brothers died in
flaming hell below them, the jato
units soared through the empty
sky, above the level of the terrain-
skimming doggies, and dropped
down like hunting falcons on the
batteries.

Each man carried in a drop-
pouch a charge of ferro-atomic ex-
plosive on a time fuse. As they
whipped over the batteries, the
men released their deadly cargos,
directly into the barrels of the
thread-disruptors, and sped up and

away, back for their own lines. It
was futile, of course, for sonorad
had caught them, and trackbeams
snaked out across the sky, picking
each 'man off like moths caught in
a flame. The jato units were snuffed
out in mid-air, even as the ferro-
atomics went off inside the dis-
ruptor barrels.

Gfeat sheets of metal exploded
outward, ripping apart the bunkers
into which they had been set. The
disruptors shattered their linings,
throwing their own damping rods
out, and in one hell's holocaust of
exploding ferro-atomics, the entire
battery went skyward. Three hun-
dred men died at once, faces burn-
ed off, arms ripped loose from
sockets, legs broken and shredded.
Bodies cascaded from the sky and
the steel ran with blood.

It was a typical day in the war.

THE TRACKBEAMS probed
outward, scouring the ground
for landmines planted by the foot-
soldiers, and exploded them on con-
tact, then moved on. Eventually,
they probed at the firm outer shell
off the White perimeter.

Then the charged trackbeams of
White met the Black beams, and*
they locked. They locked in a
deadly struggle, and at opposite
ends of those beams, men at con-
trol panels, in shock helmets, pour-
ed power to their beams, in a visi-
ble struggle to beat down the

HIS FIRST DAY AT WAR

strength of the other.

A surge, a slight edge, a nudge
of force, and White was dominant.
The beam raced back the length
of the weakened Black beam, and
in a dome two hundred miles away,
a man leaped from his bucket seat
and clawed at his helmet ... even
as his eyes spouted flame, and his
mouth crawed open in a ghastly
scream. His charred body — burnt
black inside — turned half-around,
writhing, as the man beat at his
dead face, and then he fell across
his console.

The trackbeam was loose insfde
the bunker. In a matter of mo-
ments, no living thing moved in
the bunker dome. But it was a
double-edged weapon, for associate
trackbeams of the doomed White
had centered in, and now five of
them joined in racing back along
the Black's length. The scene in
the White bunker dome was re-
peated. This time a woman had
been under the helmet.

So it went. All day. One skir-
mish of foot-soldiers with ensnaring
nets who stumbled across a Black
detonation team, near Auchulous
Crater ended strangely, and ter-
ribly.

The detonation team was wrap-
ped in the gooey meshes, but had
barely enough time to toss their
charges. The charges exploded, kill-
ing the ensnaring outfit, but also
served to shatter their own hel-

mets. They lay there for minutes,
those whose helmets had merely
crackled, until their air ran out,
and then they strangled to death.
The ones who died initially were
lucky.

At day's end, at 1630 hours, the
death toll was slightly below aver-
age for a weekend. Dead: 5,886.
Wounded: 4. Damages: twelve
billion dollars, rounded off by the
Finance & Reclamation Clerk. The
batteries were silent, the crabs back
in their depots and pools, the air-
less dead face of the moon left to
the reclamation teams, who worked
through the "night," preparing for
Monday morning, when the war
would resume.

The commuters were racked, and
as the Blacks filed into their ships,
as the Whites boarded theirs, the
humming of great atomic motors
rolled through the shining corridors
of the commuters. Inside, men read
newspapers and clung to the ac-
celeration straps for the ride down.

Down to Earth.

For a quiet evening at home,
and a quiet Sunday . . . before the
war started again.

Almost as one, they roared free
of the slight gravity, and plunged
down toward the serene, carefully-
tended face of the Earth. The
young lieutenant hung from his
strap and tried to block out the
memory of what had happened that
day. Not the fighting. God, that

SPACE TRAVEL

had been just fine. It had been
good. The fighting. But what the
older men had said. That was like
saying there was no God. The moon
was for war, the Earth was for
peace.

They had knifed a battery ser-
geant on his way down? He look-
ed about him, but all faces were
turned into newspapers. He tried
to put it from his mind forcefully.

Behind the commuters, the blast-
ed, crushed and death-sprayed face
of the Moon glowed in sharp relief
against the black of space.

What had the Major said later:

War is good, but we have to
retain our perspective.
SUNDAY

Yolande was in the kitchen dial-
ling dinner when the chimes croon-
ed at her. She turned from the dif-
ficult task of dictating dinner to
the robochef, and wiped a stray
lock of ebony hair from her fore-
head.

"Bill! Bill, will you answer it
. . . it's probably Wayne and Lotus."

In the living room, 2/Lt. Wil-
liam Larkspur Donnough uncrossed
his long legs, sighed as he turned
off the tri-V, and yelled back soft-
ly, "Okay, hon. I'll get it."

He walked down the long pastel-
tiled hall and flipped up the force
screen dial, releasing the wall into
nothingness. As the wall flicked
out and was gone, the outside took
form, and standing on Bill and

Yolande Donnough's front breeze-
way were 2/Lt. and Mrs. Wayne
M'Kuba Massaro.

"Come on in, come on in," Bill
chuckled to them. "Yo's in the kitch
fixing dinner. Here, Lotus, let me
have your hood."

He took the brightly-tinted hood
and cape offered by the girl, a
striking Melanesian with an up-
turned Irish nose and flaming red
hair.

He accepted Wayne Massaro's
service cap in the other hand and
stuck the apparel to the rack, which
turned into the wall, holding the
clothing magnetically.

"What'll you have, Wayne,
Lotus?"

Lotus raised a hand to signify
none for her, but Wayne Massaro
made a T with his hands. He want-
ed a tea-ball with a shot of herro-
coke.

When Bill had jiggered the mix-
ture together, warmed it and chill-
ed it again, when they settled down
in the formfit chairs, Donnough
looked across at the other lieuten-
ant and sighed. "Well, how'd it go
your first day up there?"

T otus broke in before her hus-
-*— ' band could answer. "Well, if
you two are going to talk shop,
I'm going in to see if Yo needs
help." She got up, smoothed the
sheath across her thighs, and walk-
ed into the kitchen.

HIS FIRST DAY AT WAR

"She'll never get used to my
making the war a career," Wayne
Massaro shook his head in affec-
tionate exasperation. "She just
can't understand it."

"She'll get used to it," Bill re-
plied, sipping his own hi-skotch.
"Lotus still has a lot of that Irish
blood in her . . . Yo was the same
way when / came in."

"It's so different, Bill. So very
different. What they taught us in
the Academy doesn't seem quite
true up there. I mean — " he strug-
gled to form the right phrase,
" — it's not that they're going
against doctrine . . . it's just that
things aren't black and white up
there — as they said they'd be when
I was in the Academy — they're grey
now. They don't start the morning
bombardments on time, they drink
coff when they should be posting,
and — and — "

He stopped abruptly, and a
hardness came into the set of his
head. He jerked quickly, and bent
to his drink. "N-nothing," he mur-
mured, principally to himself.

Donnough looked disturbed.

"What happened, Wayne? You
flinch-out when the barrage came
over?"

Massaro lifted his eyes in a
shocked and startled expression.
"You aren't kidding, are you?"

Donnough leaned back further,
and the formfit closed about him
like a womb. "No, I suppose I

wasn't. I know you better than
that, known you too long."

There was a great deal of respect
and friendship in his words. Each
man sat silently, holding his drink
to his lips, as a barricade to con-
versation for the moment. Filtered
memories of shared boyhoods came
to them, and talk was n«t right at
that moment.

Then Massaro lowered the glass
and said, "That jato raid came off
pretty badly didn't it?" The sub-
ject had been altered.

Donnough nodded ruefully,
"Yeah, wouldn't you know it. Oh,
hell, it was all the fault of that
gravel-brained Colonel Levinson.
He didn't even send over a force
battery cover. It was suicide. But
then, what the hell, that's what
they're paid for."

Massaro agreed silently and took
a final pull at the tea-laced high-
ball. "Uh. Good. More, daddy,
-more!"

Donnough waved a hand at the
circle-dial of the robot bartender
set into the recreation unit against
the wall. "Dial away, brother frat
man. I'm too comfortable to move."
A gaggle of female giggles erupt-
ed from the kitchen, and Yolande
Donnough's voice came through the
grille in the ceiling. "Okay you
two heroes . . . dinner's #n. Let's
go." Then: "Bill, will y©u call the
kids from downstairs?"
"Okay, Yo."

7 6

SPACE TRAVEL

Bill Donnough walked to the
dropshaft at one corner of the liv-
ing room, and slid his fingernail
across the grille set into the wall
beside the ernpty pit. Downstairs,
in the lower levels of the house —
sunk fifty feet into the Earth—
the Donnough children heard the
rasp over their own speakers, and
waited for their father's words.

"Chow's on, monsters. Updecks
on the double!"

The children came tumbling
from their rooms and the play area,
and threw themselves into the
sucking force of the invisible riser-
beam that lived in the dropshaft.
In a second they were whisked up
the shaft and stepped out in the
living room:

First came Polly with her golden
braids tied atop her round little
head in the Swedish style. Her
hands were clean. Then Barthole-
mew- Aaron, whose nose was run-
ning again, and whose sleeves show-
ed it. Polikushka (who had been
named after a Gorky heroine) came
next, her little face frozen with
tears for Toby had bitten her calf
on the way upshaft, and Toby
himself, clutching his side where
Polikushka had kicked him in re-
flex.

Donnough shook his head in
mock severity, and slapped Polly
on the behind as he urged them
to the table for dinner. "Go on
you beasts, roust!"

All but Polikushka, the children
ran laughing to the dining hall
which ran parallel to the tiled front
hall of the house. The dark-haired
Polikushka clung to her daddy's
hand and walked slowly with him.
"Daddy, are you goin' to the moon
tomorra'?"

"That's right, baby. Why?"
"Cause Stacy Garmonde down
the block says her old ma — "

"Father, not old man!" he cor-
rected her.

« — her father's gonna shoot you
good tomorra'. He says all Blacks
is bad, and he's gonna shoot you
dead. Tha's what Stacy says, an'
she's a big old stink!"

Donnough stopped walking and
kneeled beside the wide, dark eyes.
"Honey, you remember one thing,
no matter what anybody tells you:
"Blacks are good. Whites are
bad. That's the truth, sweetie. And
nobody's going to kill daddy, be-
cause he's g6ing to rip it up come
tomorrow. Now do you believe
that?"
She bobbled her head very quick-
"Blacks is good, an' Whites is
big stinks."

He patted her head with affec-
tion. "The grammar is lousy, baby,
but the sentiment is correct. Now.
Let's eat."

They went in, and the children
were silent with heads only half-
bowed— half staring at the hot

HIS FIRST DAY AT WAR

dishes that o-popped out of the
egress slot in the long table — while
Donnough slaid the prayer:

"Dear God above, thank you for
this glorious repast, and watch over
these people, and insure a victory
where a victory is deserved. Pre-
serve us and our state of existence
. . . Amen."

"Amen." Massaro.

"Amen." Lotus Massaro.

"Aye-men!" the children.

Then the forks went into the
food, and mouths opened, and din-
ner was underway. As they sat and
discussed what was what, and who
had gotten his, and wasn't it won-
derful how the moon was the battle-
field, while the Earth was saved
from more destruction like those
20th Century barbarians had dealt
it.

"Listen, Bill," Massaro jabbed
the fork into the air, punctuating
his words, "next Sunday you and
Yo and the kids come on over to
our hovel. It'll cost you for a robo-
sitter next week. We're sick of lay-
ing out the credits."

They smiled and nodded and the
dinner date for next Sunday was
firmed up.

MONDAY

The commuter platforms. The
ships racked one past another,
pointed toward the faint light they
could not see. The light of the dead
battlefield. Moon. The Blacks in

their regal uniforms queing up to
enter the vessels, the Whites in
splendid array, about to board ship.

A Black ship lay beside a White
one.

Bill Donnough boarded one as
he caught a glance at the ship be-
side. Massaro was in line there.

"Go to hell, you White bastard!"
he yelled. There was no friendliness
there. No camaraderie.

"Die, you slob-creepin' Black!
Drop!" he was answered.

qpHEY BOARDED the ships.
-^ The flight was short. Batteries
opened that day — the five thousand
and fifty-ninth day of the war — at
0550. Someone had chopped down
the eager-beaver.

At 1 149 precisely, a blindbomb
with a snooper attachment was
launched by 2/Lt William Larkspur
Donnough, BB XO in charge of
strafing and collision, which man-
aged to worm its devious way
through the White defense perimeter
force screens. The blindbomb — BB
— fell with a skit-course on the
bunkerdome housing a firebeam
control center, and exploded the
dome into fragments.

Later that evening, Bill Don-
nough would start looking for an-
other home to attend, the following
Sunday.

Who said war was hell? It had
been a good day on the line.

Captain's Choice

There were four on the ship and only two
would be able to leave it alive — if they were
lucky. The problem was to decide which two • •

Torin knows, thought Captain
Sherman, leaning wearily a-
gainst the control console of
the Star Prince while the sweat
ran down his chest. The big slob
knows what's happened and what
it means to the jour oj us on this
ship. But he wants to force me to
say it myself. He wants to force
the issue.

Torin Coyle stood rugged as a
stump on the other side of the
cabin, a pile of beef dumped solid-
ly on chunky, widespread legs. Shei-
la Mayne's hand rested lightly on
his arm, and her face was white
and tearstained. They were looking
at the captain, waiting for him to
speak. Young Jim Lowndes was not
looking at anybody. He sat huddled
on the deck, his head bowed in
shame at his fear and failure, his
hands hiding his face.

"All right," said the captain,
"May as well face it. The Earth,

Mars, Venus, even the asteroids,
maybe Jupiter, they're gone, burn-
ed up, all the colonies, all the
people. We may as well face that."

"Yeah," said Torin. "But that's
not quite what I asked you. I'll
repeat it, old man. We're the only
ones left, aren't we?" He jutted
put his bulky chin, "Aren't we?"
He shifted toward the right, and
Captain Sherman read the move-
ment. The ship's one blaster was
in the locker over there. The other
blasters were stowed somewhere in
the escape glider.

You're smart and dumb, Coyle,
thought the Captain with contempt.
/ see you so clear.

He wished that Coyle would let
him alone, let him rest. He had
fought the controls of the Star
Prince for eleven hours, alone, be-
cause Coyle didn't know anything
about flying and Jim's nerves had
split like sticks and become a

o. 5r<j<^^ar>

SPACE TRAVEL

crackling bonfire of hysteria and
fear. The captain had fought the
Star Prince through the death of
the solar system, lurching through
magnetic storms, dodging berserk
meteors and exploding moons, pant-
ing as the heat inside the ship
throbbed at a hundred and ten, a
hundred and twenty, wondering if
the heat outside would melt her
down and turn them into cinders
inside an ingot. He had been a
middle-aged man, and now he knew
he was an old man. In eleven hours.
Nobody knew, the scientists had
no warning the sun was going to
do what it had done. It had suck-
ed in on itself like a man sucking
in his cheeks and then it had ex-
ploded, bursting without warning
into an all-consuming ball that
swelled out to engulf Mercury, then
Venus and her cities, then Earth,
then Mars and then the asteroids.
They had melted, probably, then
vaporized, becoming hot gasses in
the flaring ball that finally began
to collapse.

"Aren't we?" Torin said again.
"We're the only people left."

He had moved closer to the
blaster.

"We probably are," said Sher-
man. "There were no other ships
out so far as us — and we were
barely out far enough."

Torin ? s fiancee looked at him,
her eyes asking for something to

reassure her, but Torin looked only
at the captain. "Yeah," he said.
"Now, one other thing. You said
the ship was crippled. Is it?" Coyle's
eyes gave the merest flick toward
the little locker where the blaster
hung, and again he shifted slightly
to the right.

"Did I say that?" asked Captain
Sherman.

For the first time, Jim Lowndes
raised his face. "If I'd stayed with
you. . ."

"Forget it," the captain said.
"I've seen older men act worse."

"IS IT?" roared Coyle. "IS THE
SHIP CRIPPLED?"

His hand now rested on the lock-
er.

Oh, hell, thought Sherman wear-
ily. Get it over with.

"It is," he said. "A mass of
molten matter grazed us along the
starboard side. The hull is proba-
bly warped, and we can't project
the starboard airfoil. It's probably
fused. That means. . ."

"Yeah," bit in Coyle, "I know
what it means." His hand snaked
open the little locker and flicked
inside. "It means we're okay to
travel in space — no air to make
friction — but we can't land any-
where. To land anywhere we need
them airfoils to glide in slow and
not burn up with friction. Ain't I
right?"

His hand came out of the locker

CAPTAIN'S CHOICE

with the blaster.

"That's correct." said Sherman,
as calmly as though the blaster
were not there.

"I went to school too," said Coyle,
glancing at Jim. "And something
else I know — the escape glider can
get down. It'll carry two people.
That's going to be me and Sheila."

He swung the blaster in a little
arc, flicking it to cover both the
captain and Jim, and Sheila gave
a gasp.

"You wouldn't. . ." she said.

"Shut up," Torin said.

"No, he wouldn't," said Captain
Sherman calmly. "If he killed me
you'd all die. There wouldn't be
anyone to fly you to a habitable
planet."

"You'll fly us or I'll blast you,"
said Torin. "Simple as that."

"You'd better give me the blast-
er, Torin. Just toss it over, please.
I prefer to remain in command of
my own ship."

"Old man, knocking you off
wouldn't bother me a bit."

Jim spoke. "He means what he
says!"

"That's right, Jimmy boy. If I
have to knock off the old man, I'll
just let you do the flying instead
of him. Come on, skipper, let's
move."

Sherman's tone had nothing in it
but tiredness with Coyle. "You
damn fool," he said, "we only have

fuel enough to get us to one planet
— New Venus. Jim doesn't know
how to find New Venus. He can't
navigate. Nobody can but me." He
shut his eyes as a wave of tired-
ness swept over him. "If you want
to shoot now, blast and be damned
to you. I wouldn't live long any-
way. I'll have radiation sickness
soon, Coyle. When I had to go into
the stern tube shaft, while we were
fighting out of that furnace, I got
a dose of rays that'd kill a Martian
mule."

Coyle raised the blaster and
pointed it directly into the Cap-
tain's face. Sherman looked into
the muzzle without a tremor. Coyle
held it steady, his thumb curling
down on the knob.

"There are two healthy men a-
board this ship," said the Captain,
"and one woman. Sheila and one
of the men have a serious thing a-
head of them. They'll be the last
representatives of the human race;
they'll have to start it over again
from scratch. Who should decide
which man? The person with the
least personal emotional involve-
ment. Me. I promise you a judg-
ment without bias, Coyle. Killing
me will doom you. Give me the
blaster."

Coyle's thumb curled tighter on
the knob, then stopped, but he still
kept the blaster pointed at the Cap-
tain. "How are you going to de-

cide? Toss a coin? Duel? I suggest
a duel."

"I'll let you know when we get
to New Venus," said Sherman tired-
ly. "Now — if you don't mind-
either shoot me or hand me the
blaster."

Coyle knew when he was beaten.
He handed the captain the gun.

THE TRIP to New Venus would
take ten days. Every fifteen
hours Captain Sherman locked the
others into the two compartments,
the girl and Coyle in one, Jim
Lowndes in the other. Sherman
had designed the Star Prince him-
self, after he'd reached retirement
age and left the space service, and
he knew those compartments were
rugged. He had built them to hold
the animals he planned to trap in
other galaxies for zoos and circuses.
That was before the wars with the
Mars and Venus colonies had caus-
ed the ban on travel outside the
system, and Sherman had to con-
vert his ship to a tourist craft.
Travel was controlled tightly even
within the system, which was why
his ship, carrying Coyle and Sheila
Mayne on a sightseeing trip of
the outer planets, was the only one
far enough out to escape when the
disaster came to the sun. And who
should the final survivors be? Shei-
la and Coyle? Or Sheila and Jim
Lowndes?

SPACE TRAVEL

The Star Prince had driven to-
ward their destination for six days
when the girl slipped a note into
the captain's hand.

"Must tell vital information,"
read the tight scrawl. "Open when
I tap. He'll be asleep. Vital."

It was two hours after he had
locked them up for sleeping that
Sherman heard a breath-faint tap-
ping on the door of Sheila and
Torin's compartment. Very quiet-
ly, blaster in hand, he unlocked
the door. Sheila slipped out and
Sherman locked the door behind
her. She seemed tense and firmly
in control of herself.

They moved away from the lock-
ed door and Sherman spoke in a
low voice. "What did you want to
say?"

"Torin is going to kill Jim," she
said. "That will leave him the only
healthy male and you'll have to let
him go to the new planet."

"So he wants to begin the human
race on the foundation of murder.
And why are you telling me?"

The question surprised her, as
Sherman had intended. He wanted
to learn about her.

"Because you've got to stop
him," she said.

"Coyle's the man you'd planned
to marry. Suppose this decides me
against him and in favor of Jim?"

"I thought of that."

"Mmm. Maybe you prefer Jim

CAPTAIN'S CHOICE

and this is a lie to influence me
against Coyle."

"You don't trust anybody, do
you?" she blazed.

He smiled. "After all, I don't
know you very well. Would you
be pleased or disappointed if you
wound up on New Venus with Jim
instead of Torin?"

She blushed and bit her lip.
"That's none of your business!"
she said.

"Interesting," he said. "If you'd
preferred Coyle, I think you'd have
told me. You'd better get back to
bed now. I'll take care of this."

Just before she slipped into the
compartment, she paused and whis-
pered. "Tell me — who do you think
you'll choose?"

"I'll decide when I have to."

"Shouldn't I have a say?"

"Maybe so. What would you
say?"

"Like you — perhaps I'd decide
when I had to. I've learned Torin
Coyle is a brute. But Jim's a
weakling."

"That," said Sherman, waving
her in and locking the door, "is
precisely my delimma."

Sherman moved to Jim's com-
partment and unlocked it.

Jim w r as curled in his blanket.
Even in sleep his angular face was
not relaxed. I've never seen him
relaxed for ten years, thought Sher-
man. Not since he was eleven years

old, when the thing happened to
him.

He shook Jim gently. "Sheila,"
Lowndes muttered. The captain
shook him again and his eyes open-
ed.

"I've got news for you," said
Sherman. "Wake up, boy."

Jim sat up. "If you're going to
choose me, forget it," he said bit-
terly. "I know what New Venus is
like — heat, jungle, desert, electri-
city beasts, mud-wolves, volcanoes,
brain-vines. I wouldn't last long
enough to gender a baby. If I did,
what kind of a new race would I
begin? Kids pattern themselves
from their parents. A race of neu-
rotic cowards."

"And Coyle would found a race
of brutes!" said Sherman. The
words leaped out of him. He hadn't
meant to say them.

"Brutes can survive," said Jim.
"It's going to take a real man to
survive down there. Coyle's a man.
Now get out of here and let me
sleep."

"I didn't come to talk about
that," said Sherman roughly. "Shei-
la told me tonight that Coyle plans
to kill you."

"Thanks. Can I go back to sleep
now?"

Sherman glared at him and stood
to go. He was very tired and for
two days the radiation sickness had
been stirring in him. It's like Jim's

8 4

SPACE TRAVEL

sickness, he thought. Something he
was exposed to and entered him
and destroyed something. The kids
who had locked him into a satellite
chamber, for a joke, only the joke
went sour because the chamber was
fired off with Jim inside it and he
was trapped in there for twenty
hours, alone dark, out in space,
while something was gnawed out
of him that might never grow back
again.

Jim spoke. "I'm sorry that I was
sarcastic," he said. "You've tried
to help me lick my problem, gave
me the job with the Star Prince,
and I thought I was beating it un-
til this trip, I cracked up in the
big emergency. You were a good
friend to my father and you kept
your promise to him — but don't you
see I can't be the man he was?
It's too late."

SHERMAN LOST HIS TEM-
per. "You fool!" he yelled.
"There's more than just you at
stake here! You're a decent man,
educated, honest, the best things
the race has worked out for thou-
sands of years have gone into you
and you owe it to them to pass it
along! And you're forcing me to
choose a man who won't pass it a-
long — who'll pass along the dark
things — a man who's less a man
than you are except for one thing,
and that one thing is vital!"

He bit of his speech abruptly.
Jim rolled over in his blankets, fac-
ing the wall. Captain Sherman left
and locked the door.

/ told him the truth he thought.
I'll have to choose Coyle. One slight
chance. Maybe. For Jim there's one
ace in the hole.

Sherman filed away the main
events of each day in his mind, like
a log book. The next day was the
seventh day of the ten-day trip, and
tight with tension. Jim kept an
eye on Coyle and kept out of his
way. Sherman kept an eye on them
all. Sheila twitched whenever Coyle
moved, and her eyes followed Jim.
When their eyes met he. glanced
away.

On the eighth day Coyle realized
that Jim was keeping away from
him. He began to taunt the young-
er man. No insult seemed to make
Jim angry enough to fight. He be-
came more moody. Once the girl
spoke up in his defense. Captain
Sherman was weak and had spells
of dizziness, his sickness worsened.

On the ninth day Sherman asked
Sheila if she preferred to sleep at
a different time than Coyle. She
hesitated a long time, then answer-
ed that the present arrangement
was satisfactory. Coyle continued
to bait Jim. In the afternoon the
captain began to cough blood.

On the morning of the tenth
day Sherman felt a little better. At

CAPTAINS CHOICE

lunch Coyle leaped across the table
and got Jim by the throat. Sher-
man's blaster at the back of his
skull made him loose his hold. Torin
accused the Captain of planning a
crooked decision. Sherman told him
with exasperation that he was not
planning a decision based on per-
sonal feelings but the good of the
human race.

Toward evening Sheila requested
an arrangement so she could be
confined separately. Sherman gave
her Jim's compartment, leaving Jim
to sleep free in the main cabin.
Sherman announced they would ar-
rive soon at New Venus, and he
would issue his decision. He slept
that night with the blaster under
his head. He was weak and slept
long and feverishly and had bad
dreams.

He was awakened by the low
burping of the proximity teller.
They were there. He forced him-
self to get up; he felt as though
his blood had turned to water. He
woke Jim and they worked for a
half hour at the control console.
Sherman lay down and rested, then
took up the blaster and unlocked
the compartments.

They gathered in the main room.
u The ship is in orbit," said Sher-
man. "She's as close in as I dare.
The glider is stocked; get in, push
a button, and the whole trip down
is automatic. I won't keep you in

suspense. When we started this trip,
Torin made a suggestion. A duel. I
can't think of anything more fair.
Whoever goes down there will have
to fight a savage environment. Jim
and Coyle will fight to see who
goes."

An ugly grin spread over Coyle 's
face, a red spot appeared on each
of Jim's cheekbones, and the girl
went pale. Then Torin scowled.

"And you'll stand by with the
blaster. You don't like me, old man.
How do I know. . ."

"You don't," bit in Sherman.
"You'll have to take my word I
won't interfere."

"Suppose I don't fight?" said
Jim.

"Coyle wins by default, of
course," said Sherman. He looked
at the two men. Coyle, heavy,
strong, but a little clumsy; Jim
younger, lighter, smarter and quick-
er. Jim could win if he wanted to.
If he had the courage. If the ace
in the hole was really an ace, and
if it came to be played at all.

"You can't let them do this,"
said Sheila. "I won't stand by
and . . ."

"And see your pretty boy get
splattered?" snarled Coyle. "By
God, the little woman snitcher has
got it coming!" He grinned. "The
skipper's a good-o after all. What's
the weapons, old man?"

"Bare hands, anything you can

SPACE TRAVEL

get hold of. No holds barred. Shei-
la, you'll stay out of it. I'm putting
you in the compartment."

"You can't do this," she said
vehemently.

"It's the only way," he said.
"I've thought about it for ten days.
Now, if you'll just go back into
the compartment. . ."

She went, because he had the
blaster.

When Sherman locked the door
he turned his back on the main
room and Coyle hit him like an
avalanche. Sherman went down roll-
ing, Coyle on top of him, grabbing
at the blaster. They rolled in a
tangle across the deck and Jim
leaped into the melee. Torin got
the captain's gun hand and the
blaster fired in a great orange
flash. The console came ripping
down and pinned the captain across
the legs. In the stern space flames
began. Thoughts flashed through
Sherman's mind.

Didn't count on this. Maybe I
can play the ace anyway.

Coyle swung the blaster toward
Jim and squeezed the knob. There
was nothing but a feeble buzzing.
"Only one shot in it," panted
Sherman from the deck. "All I'd
have needed for trouble. You fool-
ed yourself, Coyle. GET HIM
JIM!"

JIM MOVED toward Coyle. Get
him fast, thought Sherman.

Keep him off balance. You can't
slow down, he's heavier than you.
But Jim's motions were uncertain
and defensive. Coyle took the of-
fensive, moved in, and Jim began
to dodge. He picked up a jagged
scrap of metal from the wrecked
console, and as he stooped Coyle's
boot hit him in the face. He stag-
gered up and back and Coyle
plunged toward him, swinging with
the blaster, hitting him in the face.
Jim's hands went over his face
protectively and his eyes roved the
cabin desperately. The blaster
smashed down on him again and
again. Suddenly Jim dropped to
the deck and rolled into the tun-
nel-like shaft that led to the load-
ing port.

In the stern storage space the
flames were growing.

Torin dropped to his knees with
an ugly howl. Jim was huddled out
of sight, at the far end of the
shaft, and Torin reached in after
him. He yanked his hands back,
bleeding where Jim had stabbed
him with the metal.

"Torin!" yelled Sherman. "Never
mind that. Get the girl and get out
of here. That fire's going to reach
the tanks!"

'Til kill 'im," panted Torin,
reaching in again and snatching
back his torn hands.

"He won't fight you — he's given
up! Get Sheila and go. The key's in

CAPTAIN'S CHOICE

my pocket."

Torin left the shaft, got the key,
and unlocked the compartment.
Now, thought Sherman, I've got to
play the ace. I only hope the ace is
there.

Torin dragged the girl from the
compartment. She was sobbing
wildly. He dragged her to the -glid-
er hatch and opened it.

"Torin!" yelled Sherman. "One
thing. Lowndes was in love with
Sheila. Can't you let them say good-
bye?"

// it works, thought Sherman.
The first part and the second part.

Torin laughed with a contorted
mouth. "Yeah — I'll let 'em say
goodbye. She was standing me off
all those nights in the compartment
— for that scrawny thing? She'll
give him a goodbye to remember!"

It looks like an ace so jar. Now
if I've played it right.

Jim, looking out from the shaft,
could see them clearly. Torin slap-
ped Sheila twice with the blaster,
ripping across the left cheek, the
right cheek. He twisted his fist in
her hair and turned her to face
the hole. "Say 'goodbye, honey,' "
he gritted. "Say: 'We're going to
miss you, but Torin will help me
get over it.' "

"I love you, Jim," said Sheila.

// it makes him mad enough,
thought Sherman. And if it doesn't
he hasn't the stuff anyway.

There was a stirring in the hole
and Jim's face appeared, his eyes
bulging. Torin twisted Sheila's hair.
"Say what I told you to!"

Back aft there was a splutter and
sizzle. The flames were into the
first tank.

Jim was out of the hole and upon
Torin before the big man could
let go of the girl's hair. He came
through the air and his knees thud-
ded into Torin's chest and sent him
sprawling. He ripped at Torin's
throat with the metal, and missed,
raking him across the jaw. Torin
reached up to bear-hug him and he
wasn't there. The big man stag-
gered up and Jim kicked him in the
groin, Torin shrieked and went
down again, grabbed Jim's foot

Jim kicked savagely but couldn't
break the hold. Torin pulled him
closer and swung the blaster at his
head. Jim ducked and his hand
flew up. The metal ripped Torin's
wrist and the blaster fell from his
hand.

Sheila stood still dazed with To-
rin's treatment. The flames in the
after compartment were higher.

Torin got to his feet, holding to
Jim's foot, out of reach of his hand,
and keeping Jim's leg straight,
twisted. Jim was flopped over on
his stomach, outstretched and out-
weighed. Torin reached behind him
for the metal bar wrench that hung
by the glider port. His hand groped

SPACE TRAVEL

blindly. The bar-wrench wasn't
there.

Sheila brought the tool down
across his skull. He grunted, let go
of Jim, and swung toward her. He
caught her by the throat.

Jim was up, one leg trailing. He
hopped on the other leg, and al-
most fell on Torin's back. The
hand with the metal stabbed toward
Torin's throat, then again.

Torin went down slowly.

"Get going!" yelled Sherman.
"The ship is going to blow and
you can't help me anyway."

They dropped into the slings in-
side the glider. "You're a man, Jim!
Happy landings!" Sherman half
coughed it. His breath was weak

and his lungs were full of fumes.

The hood of the glider was near-
ly closed. "And you're a man,"
called Jim. "We'll name our first
baby after you!"

The hood snapped shut, the
hatch thudded down, the automatic
control took over and the blazing
Star Prince shuddered with the
thump of the blastoff. Captain
Sherman dropped his head on the
deck. Adam and Eve, he thought.
And I kept my promise to Jim's
dad after all.

And then there was a sound like
an immense gong and the deck was
gone and there were no more
thoughts, but only a restful feel-
ing in spangled blackness.

Aet ^JranAport

THE major airlines are entering
the field of jet transport so
rapidly that the old reciprocating
engine soon will be a novelty to
transcontinental and ocean fliers.
The steam engine lasted a hundred
years — you can bet that the recipro-
cating piston engine won't. Straight
jets and gas turbines are already
invading their province.

To those who predict the
demise of the jets and turbines
to pure trans-oceanic rockets, a
more subtle question arises — simple
economics. It's profit and loss
that change transportation — and
jets and rockets are no exceptions.
The latter are just too costly for
the transcontinental type of travel.

The new jets are incredibly pow-
erful machines compared with their
predecessors and their luxurious-
ness befits them. Power gives them
speed and as larger jet engines
are developed they may replace les-
ser engines.

They have introduced problems
among the major airports. So fast
are these planes that absolute con-
trol must be exercised as to their
coming and going. They can't sit
over an airport for hours waiting
for the landing signal.

Perhaps more than anything else
the rapid burgeoning of trans-
oceanic travel has spurred the air-
lines to make use of these marvels
of modern technology.

"Walt! As Captain of this ship I insist on
being the first to set foot on this world!'*

Nine Shadows At Doomsday

^3. #/#. Z/ennedhi

Centuries before something had destroyed
life in the solar system. That portion of space
was now off limits - but not for a hunted man . . .

HIS NAME was Mark Chan.
He was a tall rough-jawed
vaguely almond-eyed man, a
thief and a hunted criminal. Son
of an Anglo-Polynesian mother and
an Alphan father, born in the in-
hospitable half-world between two
recognized stratas of society, he
had drifted into crime and become
so expert that half the law forces in
the Alphan system did not believe
he existed and the other half drove
itself frantic trying to locate him
so that he could be sentenced to
social reconditioning. His last job
had been a big one, and the legal
heat had grown intense. That was
the only reason he'd tackled this
offer — because it enabled him to
get so far away that no one could
find him for awhile. Now, expertly
handling the controls of the D-
Class Explorer rocket he wondered
whether reconditioning would have
been half bad . . .

It was a stellar boneyard, this
nine-planet system through which
the battered explorer shot. A mil-
lion-mile cemetery hung with stars.
He hated to admit it but he was
beginning to feel the same terror
the others had expressed. Here
was nothing but silence. Silence
and death. And they had to land
on one of these empty spinning
rocks.

" Watch it!" came the voice of
Dr. Wilton Wallace. "The red
signal is on!"

Chan turned. Wallace, seated in
the bucket next to Chan's, was a
slender dryly academic young man
with glasses. One of his thin fin-
gers was pointed to a scarlet
blinker on the control board. The
other occupant of the control
cabin, an attractive brunette with
severly straight hair and no make-
up on her lips, reached for the
head plug.

SPACE TRAVEL

"Who is it, June?" Wallace ask-
ed. "The Foundation?"

"Just a minute," Dr. June Sim-
monds answered. "The code signal's
weak . . ."

Chan eyed her obliquely. She was
intensely good-looking, though she
worked hard to conceal the fact as
did most females associated with
scholarly institutions these days.
So far on the trip he had been un-
able to break her reserve, unable
even to get her to smile once. This
irritated him because he had al-
ways been more than successful
with women. She noticed him scowl-
ing at her, turned away coolly and
stared out through the thick view
plate at the misty red planet to-
ward which the ship was sweep-
ing.

"Yes, it's the Foundation code,
right enough," she said at last,
hanging up the plug. "On the alarm
frequency. That means trouble,
Will."

Wallace's face was cut with a
frown. "What could have happen-
ed? We took so many precautions!
And if the law has somehow dis-
covered that we've come into this
system illegally there'll be enforce-
ment ships after us in no time.
We'll never get a chance to take
a look inside Thor Peak . . ."
Wallace gave a weary, dejected
sigh.

"I don't understand the private

code you have rigged up with that
museum of yours," "Chan said a bit
sharply, "but whatever the mes-
sage, you won't receive it until
we've jetted down on the planet '
there. I've set the pilot tapes for
your exact reference points and
we'll be sitting at the foot of your
Thor Peak in precisely one hour
and ten minutes. Because of the
message warp lag you'll be lucky to
get the actual decoded transmission
for an hour and a half. So at least
you'll have twenty glorious mo-
ments in which to advance science."
Dr. June Simmonds retorted:
"Your manner has become in-
creasingly more offensive on each
day of the trip, Chan. You're be-
ing paid handsomely to pilot for
us, in addition to the fact that you
needed to get out of the Alphanus
system mirth more than we did."

A cynical smile touched Chan's
features. "Sure, oh sure. But I
didn't bargain for a trip into the
bottom of a grave. There's nothing
alive out there for more miles
than I can count. Why not admit
it? You need me and I need you,
so why not bare our little neuroses
and be friends? You keep yours
hidden pretty well, Dr. Simmonds.
What is it? Frustration or just
plain arrogance?"

JUNE SIMMONDS flushed,
stifled a retort and bit her lip.

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY

Suddenly Wallace grunted softly,
for he had been staring through
the view plate at the swelling red
ball of the planet which was their
destination and as through hyp-
notized by the sight he had evi-
dently paid no attention to their
conversation. Wallace spoke:

"I understand how you feel,
Chan. It affects me the same way.
The Sol system has been dead for
three thousand years. We're per-
haps the first humans to penetrate
it since the cataclysm — whatever
it was— swept out from Thor Peak
down there on Mars. We wouldn't
even be here today I suppose, if
those few thousand ships hadn't
gotten off the outer moons while
the inner planets were going
through the agonies of death. What
was it like, I wonder? What '11 we
find there, if anything?" He
smiled wanly. "I seem to be run-
ning to cliches, so here's another.
We haven't yet beaten Nature. The
Sol system lived thousands of
years — and was wiped out in one
day. And we don't know why."

"But perhaps we'll find out!"
June Simmonds breathed suddenly.
"That's the whole reason for — "

Chan interrupted: "For risking
imprisonment, maybe even recon-
ditioning, plus sure abolition of
your beloved Alphanus Historical
Foundation, all because you
couldn't resist poking around in a

system that has been off limits
since our ancestors were sucklings.
You people are almost as dedicated
about breaking the law as I am."

"I'm sorry Dr. Greentree couldn't
see this," Wallace said.

"That's another thing," Chan
replied. "I'm not used to having
a corpse in the zero compartment
when I pilot a ship. That man
shouldn't have come if he knew his
heart was weak. The first serious
grav field snapped him like a
toothpick." Chan shook his head
to indicate that he did not under-
stand the ways of intellectuals.
"Who was he, anyhow?"

Wallace explained that the dead
passenger, one Dr. Amos Green-
tree, was an histoarchaeologist who
had presented himself at the
Alphanus Historical Foundation
one day with a staggering sum of
money — just the sum needed by
Doctors Wallace and Simmonds to
finish the last location charts of
Thor Peak. The source of the nat-
ural cataclysm which had stripped
the Sol system of its life had been
the subject of a lifetime search by
the fathers of the two scientists.
At last the key to the old writings
had been broken, just before the
two researchers died. Since the
whole project was highly illegal,
considering that no one knew what
peril still lurked in the Sol sys-
tem and that exploration was con-

SPACE TRAVEL

centrated on moving outward, be-
yond the Alphanus system, rather,
than inward, there had been no
funds to complete the details of
the work.

Then the little man, Dr. Green-
tree, had appeared, unknown to
any of the staff of the Foundation
but with valid credentials which
withstood a rigorous checking. He
had been working independently on
the problem of Sol's destruction,
and though he had accumulated
considerable money— how, he de-
clined to say— he had concluded
that one man just couldn't com-
plete the task alone. So he had
volunteered to join forces with the
large institution, and he had been
a passenger on this completely ille-
gal return trip to the source of
one of the holocausts which had
plagued man at regular intervals
through recorded history.

"Isn't even decent," Chan mut-
tered. "Not giving him a burial."

"I must say you're hardly in a
position to talk of morals, Chan,"
June Simmonds snapped.

Chan scowled. "Lady, I'm losing
my patience . . ."

"Stop that, both of you!" Wal-
lace broke in. "We may have
enough trouble on our hands when
the message comes through from
the Foundation. If we're at one
another's throats every moment,
we'll defeat our whole purpose—

which is to gain time to get inside
Thor Peak. Now. Chan, you say
the tapes are set? They should be
locked in for the west slope of the
peak."

"They are," Chan grumbled.
"You said the records showed an
entrance there."

"How about the bore charge?"
"Ready, and targeted in. We'll
let her go from one mile. It should
leave a straight, clean opening
right down to the center of the
peak."

Wallace stared out through the
view plate. The red and gnarly
face of Mars filled the entire screen
now, bulking huge like a vast
scarlet curtain folded many times.
Chan checked one of his gauges,
whistled sharply and set about
manipulating levers. The whine
and roar of the Explorer's tubes
modulated, and the descent rate
indicators readjusted sharply. All
of a sudden the surface of the red
world seemed to be rushing up at
them, and it continued to do so
for several minutes. Chan worked
the controls expertly. There were
tight cords of muscle standing out
in his neck now, because the com-
bination of a ticklish job and the
total dead emptiness of the shining
land below the ship worked ruth-
lessly on his nerves.

"Get on the magnascope if you
want," he announced suddenly.

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY

"Center it on thirty-eight four
plus nine and you'll have Thor
Peak." He gave a short grunt of
effort, pulled a blazing green lever
sharply. "There goes the bore
charge . . ."

QN THE CRYSTAL panel along
^^one side of the compartment a
magnified view of the terrain below
slowly blurred into focus. Thor
Peak, tallest crag of an artifically
created mountain chain blasted on-
to the face of Mars when man first
colonized it, towered up in a swirl-
ing reddish twilight. Abruptly, in
the side of the peak, there was a
thin whirling column of smoke.
When it diminished a reddish-black
circular opening could be seen on
the side of the mountain. Wallace
and June Simmonds watched the
screen with something close to re-
ligious fervor, while Chan savagely
manipulated the ship's controls in
the last, most difficult stages of
descent.

"Hurry!" Wallace breathed in-
voluntarily. "Hurry! If they're
after us from Alphanus, when the
message comes, we'll have to jet
off . . . hide . . ."

"Hide where?" Chan growled.
"They'll send enough dread noughts
to catch fifty ships like this one.
And I've got a feeling that's exact-
ly what's going to happen. All
right, strap in. Be quick about it!

We're going down"

Through the shifting sand-blown
red sky the Explorer plunged.
Mechanical psychoblackout equip-
ment blanked the screens to pre-
vent mild cases of the Landing
Syndrome. At last there was a
muffled scrunching sound, and
though none of them felt a jar,
they knew the Explorer had settled.
Wallace and Dr. Simmonds scram-
bled for the companion way, don-
ning air sets as a precautionary
measure. No telling what the cat-
aclysm had done to the atmosphere.
Chan studied the spectro-checkers.
Everything seemed all right. Still
... He shivered and moved after
them, having attached the message
plug to his belt for instant recep-
tion of the danger signal when it
came.

As he passed the zero compart-
ment he suddenly remembered lit-
tle innocuous Dr. Amos Greentree
lying there inside in a oath of cat-
aleptic fluid. Again the shiver
passed down Chan's spine. He
snagged a heatgun from the locker
along with his own air set. Wallace
was already manipulating the lock
wheels, and in a second more they
were outside, in the silica dust up
to their knees. The reddisk haze of
twilight hung over the endless miles
of dead, windblown desert on one
hand, dripped down over the fault-
lessly wild and magnificent man-

9 6

SPACE TRAVEL

made crags on the other. Perhaps
a quarter of a mile up the slope of
the tallest conical peak, a blackish
crater ten yards across gaped wide.
Wallace was already moving
swiftly along, crashing through the
dust in his eagerness to penetrate
the center of Thor Peak. There, so
the scientists believed, the nature
of the cataclysm might be appar-
ent. Dr. June Simmonds carried
along a small, compact gray metal
case which contained a multi-unit
analysis device which could readily
isolate the chemical or structural
residues left within the mountain
by whatever natural force had pro-
duced the destruction. Chan had
heard them express the belief that
the cataclysm was probably pro-
duced by a combination of sonic
vibrations and cosmic rays which,
through wild chance, had been re-
focused and diffused through what
they called the prismatic quartz
interstices of the peak. It was
pretty much Greek to him anyway.
At the moment all he cared about —
suddenly and inexplicably — was
that the gray case in June Sim-
monds' hand looked exceedingly
heavy. He wanted to catch up to
her, God alone knew why.

Chan snatched the bulky handle
of the instrument case. June Sim-
monds turned sharply, refusing to
relinquish her grip, her gray eyes
snapping with anger. "Hands off,

Chan! There's no need to play
gallant at this stage of . . . oh!"

He had wrenched the case away,
and he glowered at her now, mock-
ingly. She massaged her wrist with
her other hand. Her scowl dark-
ened. They trudged along, follow-
ing Wallace's footsteps up the slope
through the silica dust. "My ques-
tion still stands, Doctor," Chan
mocked. "Do you get a bang out
of the haughty pose, or does it
come from the glands?"

For the first time during the en-
tire trip she responded with a sign
of emotion. A faint reddish flush
rose along her throat from the
collar of her tunic.

"You're completely wrong," she
began. "What utter nonsense . . ."

"I wonder. I may be a pretty
physical type, Doctor, but I can
see into people fairly well. Why not
be honest?". Chan grinned crook-
edly. "Wallace is plenty far ahead.
He can't hear."

SOMETHING TOUCHED her,
there — perhaps Chan's sensing
that the presence of another calm
and academic mind restricted her
speech. And since, in all probability,
she'd never been out of the com-
pany of academic minds, her re-
serve was even more natural. Avert-
ing her eyes for a moment, but
still with a note of disdain, she
said: "You are physical, Chan. You

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY

have all the characteristics which
my father taught me to know
ninety-nine percent of all men
possess. I worshipped my father,
you see — his mind, his talent, his
dedication to knowledge. I've learn-
ed the lesson well. Now and again
— I'll be truthful — I wonder if he
wasn't wrong." The barrier rose
again, and her coolness deepened:
"Then I run up against a man like
you and I become convinced he was
right."

They had neared the edge of the
bomb-bored tunnel which led down
into the center of the peak. Wal-
lace was on his knees at the lip of
the crater. Putting the final ad-
justments on a maximum power
thermo torch, one of the hand
models. Chan hated himself sud-
denly for exposing his feelings for
June Simmonds. Feelings? That was
a laugh. Here in this red-lighted
boneyard, for the first time in
years, he'd thought of himself as
having feelings. Queer . . .
3^ "I'm ready," Wallace called,
springing to his feet and thumb-
ing the thermo torch control. A wide
white swath of brilliance cut down
the tunnel, the motes of light au-
tomatically analyzing each material
the beam touched. Wallace could
hardly control his eagerness as they
started down the mouth of the
opening. Chan asked as they
tramped along: "How did this —

this ray or whatever it was — escape
from the mountain in the first
place?"

"Years ago, so the records read,"
Wallace explained, "Thor Peak
was honeycombed with tunnels. It
was, of all things, a spelunking re-
sort back in the days when peo-
ple lived on Mars. All those tunnels
are choked with silica now, but
when the cataclysm struck the
rays swept straight out to the sky,
to the ends of the system."

"Sweet old Mother Nature,"
Chan said cynically. "She . . .
wait!"

There was a signal beeping in-
sistently from the message plug
at his belt. He handed the plug
to June Simmonds, who screwed it
into the jack on her air set. Wal-
lace breathed hard in the white-lit
darkness, and Chan saw the girl's
face drain till it matched the col-
or of the beam. Her eyes met those
of Wallace, panic-filled. Moments
passed, and then the small pilot
light on the plug pulsed one last
time and blacked out.

"What's wrong?" Wallace cried.
"Are they after us?"

June Simmonds nodded. "A dou-
ble strength law fleet. The man
who fitted our ship evidently had
a pang of conscience. Reported us.
But that's not all. There's another
ship on our trail. And do you know
who the Foundation thinks is in

9 8

SPACE TRAVEL

it? Brill!"

"Brtil!" Chan exclaimed. "The
hatchet man for the Elite Party?
I thought he was dead."

"I thought so too/' June re-
plied.

"Why in the devil would he
follow us?" Wallace demanded.
"Of what earthly use could we be
in bringing the goose-steppers in
his political party back in power
again?"

Chan said, "Beyond me, friends.
I'd suggest we go back to the Ex-
plorer, but fast."

"No," Wallace shook his head.
"We'll go on."

"But we'll be caught! . . ." Chan
shouted.

"Perhaps not," June -Simmonds
replied. "In any case, we've come
this far and we won't go back.
You're outvoted, Chan. And you
won't leave us behind, will you?
I don't think you're that depraved.
Yet." She stepped past Wallace,
and Chan said:

"Damn you!"

But he followed them, on down
the straight, cleanly-blasted tun-
nel. For fifteen minutes they
descended toward the heart of
Thor Peak. Now and then the
torch picked out tunnel mouths
and branches clogged with silica
dust. The bore charge had been
accurately placed, for clearly they
were following a natural route

downward into the earth toward
some central point at the center
of the mountain. All the branches
led in that direction.

Wallace raced at the head of
the group. They were below the
surface of Mars now, for the tun-
nel walls seeped a pungent gray
ichor which shone in the beam of
the thermotorch. At last Wallace
cried: "The tunnel is widening!"
Chan caught June Simmonds' arm
and they raced in pursuit. Abrupt-
ly the walls and ceiling of the
tunnel vanished, and their voices
coming through the air set-phones
took on a hollow quality. Wallace
flashed the torch along the walls,
caught something dark in the
periphery of the glow, passed on,
then jerked the beam back. "Shield
your eyes for a second," he called.
"I'm stepping up the power."

Without warning the vast cavern
was illuminated. When the first
blinding flash had died, they all
saw the dark stains on the distant
wall. June Simmonds clutched
Chan's arm. Chan himself, deeply
frightened for a moment, said:

"God in heaven . . ."

PERFECTLY ETCHED into the
-* sandy-colored wall were the sil-
houettes of nine human figures,
caught in unbearable postures of
agony. It was as if nine human be-
ings had been hurled against the

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY

stone, their flesh and their atoms
forced into the pores of the hard
surface until their two-dimensional
remains were left like shadowgraph
pictures to testify to the horror of
their deaths. Wallace ran his
hand across the smooth surface
where the nine figures were burn-
ed. Chan and June Simmonds peer-
ed at them. Chan breathed:

"What could have caused . . .?"
"There, there!" June shrieked
softly, pointing. "Is . . . that?"

Chan whirled around. In a nat-
urally formed alcove of the cav-
ern's vast curving wall, resting on
top of a carven dais of stone, sat
a spherical metal object on a rec-
tangular base of similar material.
It was perforated with tiny open-
ings and adorned with a few barb-
ed spines. Obviously of human
origin, but what the devil was it?
Chan puzzled. He asked his com-
panions. Neither seemed to hear.
Wallace, almost fainted, wheezed:
"It can't possibly ... it can't
possibly . . ."

"I'm sure of it, Will," June
Simmonds echoed. "I saw a pic-
ture once."

"They were outlawed, long be-
fore . . ."

Disgusted, Chan strode forward.
"Ah, hell, let's have a look at the
thing."

June Simmonds' shrill scream cut
him off: "Don't, don't touch it!"

"You stupid idiot!" Wallace
cried, seizing Chan's arm. "Those
things stay armed for centuries."
Chan gaped in amazement. He had
never seen two human beings
gripped by such sheer, unreasoning
terror.

June Simmonds whispered :
"Chan, that is a constant conver-
sion ray generator. Only a few
were ever perfected, because they
were so terrible. Supposedly all of
them were found and dismantled —
that alone takes two years because
they're so dangerous — long before
Sol was destroyed. They were
weapons of infinite power, Chan.
And . . ." She pointed, shuddering
at the shadows. "... and the evi-
dence seems to point to those nine.
Whoever they were, they had this
one last unit, and they tinkered
with it, and made a mistake. They
burned their tortured souls into
the wall." Her eyes were bleak.
"They destroyed a whole solar
system in the process."

Chan felt a wild crawl of fear
on his own spine. "You said . . .
it was still armed."

"Of course," Wallace answered.
"The emanation lasts three months,
then stops. It can be activated again
at any time, as long as there are
humans left to work the controls."
His voice was strained as he
fought for sanity. "Don't you see,
Chan? It makes this whole solar

100

SPACE TRAVEL

system a timebomb. That's why
it's illegal to return here. That
must be the answer. The lawmakers
know of this thing . . . perhaps a
few dozen men in each generation,
down through the years, living
with the knowledge. Not daring to
reveal it. There are people who
would be foolish enough to try to
get the machine, to work it . . ."

"Quite correct' 9 said a new voice.
"I, for instance."

Chan turned . . . and thought
he was losing his mind. Approach-
ing across the cavern's oozing
floor, a massive heatgun in one fist,
was what appeared to be the walk-
ing corpse of Dr. Amos Greentree.
The corpse smiled.

"I was quite pleased that my
little medical trick fooled you all
so well. It took me a number of
years to develop my psuedo-throm-
bosis alkaloid. Of course I had all
the Elite Party funds at my dispos-
al. The same funds which I of-
fered to the Foundation, in return
for the last bits of knowledge I
needed to locate the conversion
generator, my friends. I have work-
ed seventeen years to locate it. I
have it now. Thank you so much."

Chan, June Simmonds, Wilton
Wallace, all stood still, still as the
tortured shadows on the wall.
Greentree-Brill advanced further,
smiling.

"I promise to execute you pain-

lessly. Then I shall set to work
modifying the generator, giving it
a remote control which can be
manipulated from Alphanus, and
tripling its range, so that our sys-
tem can be effectively encompassed
by its rays. Then I shall return
and my party will place itself be-
fore the people. With an unques-
tionable right to rule."

"The law ships . . ." Wallace
choked.

Brill's dry little mouth quirked.
"Followed by a gang of our black-
leg suicide jets. Wiped out of the
heavens, by now. Many people
are expendable when the stakes
are high enough."

/^iHAN KNEW what must be
^done. All his muscles tighten-
ing, he listened to Greentree-BrilFs
voice chuckle dryly on:

"... realize, dear friends, that
most technicians are unable to
manipulate the generator without
inducing the type of result depicted
in those rather ghastly human
murals on the wall. I, however, de-
voting myself for years to the pur-
suit of this tiny and peculiar look-
ing machine have developed techni-
ques for shortening its arming
time, and doing so in perfect safe
. . . watch out!"

"No, oh no!" Chan's hand, palm
down, hung inches above the gen-
erator sphere. In a cat crouch, his

NINE SHADOWS AT DOOMSDAY

101

lips peeled away from his teeth,
Chan grinned at the political agent.
Brill's eyebrows shifted upward
and a film of sweat popped out on
his temples. Chan said softly, "I'm
a thug, Mr. Brill, but the two
doctors were very precise in their
explanations. I also know a lot
about heatguns. Before the beam
of yours can melt me down, my
hand'll drop, and while I won't
get out alive, you won't either."

Chan hoped Wilton Wallace
would be taking advantage of
Brill's moment of pop-eyed terror.
Hesitating, thinking what to say
next, Chan heard Wallace move
without seeing him do so . . .

Brill spun around, his legs get-
ting a little tangled as he fired the
heatgun. Wallace had heaved a
rock which struck Brill's neck.
Brill cried out. Wallace took the
heatgun beam full on and his
flesh began to smoke. In a spasm
of hatred and frustration Chan
burned Brill with his own heat-
gun, advancing the throttle cam to
ash position. Brill began to scream
with agony as the extra thermal
units reduced him to a small heap
of gray dust.

Uttering dry sobs, Chan knelt by
Wallace's ruined body, then looked
up at June Simmonds. "I never
cried before. I want to now. I
didn't mean for him to take it like
that. I didn't think Brill would

shoot . . ."

Her voice was oddly soft, her
eyes understanding. "I know, I
know."

Chan arose, wiped his hands on
his trousers, wishing he could erase
the stench from his nostrils. He
gazed at the sphere on the dais,
and at the living shadows of the
nine plotters fused forever into the
stone. "What do we do now?" he
asked thickly.

"That thing has to be disarmed,"
June Simmonds said. "If we can
believe Brill, and its output can be
tripled, it could eliminate Alphanus
one day, too. That mustn't hap-
pen."

"That would mean," Chan said
slowly, "going back, and turning
ourselves over to the law, and try-
ing to persuade the Technical Cabi-
net to believe our story, and send
technicians out here to disarm the
thing." A sour grin broke Chan's
features. "Lady, it would take a
lot to save me from reconditioning
if I went back. A hell of a lot. How
much pull can you muster? What
about this foundation of yours?"

June Simmonds shook her head
wearily. "Locked. Everyone arrest-
ed. They said it was coming, in
the last message . . ."

"Then, baby, no dice. There's
no third vote. Just you and me.
And the balance of power." He
hefted the heatgun significantly.

102

SPACE TRAVEL

Dr. June Simmonds threw him a
deep, penetrating stare. Then she
shrugged as if she did not care.

"It's up to you, Chan. The law
fleet was destroyed, but that
doesn't mean they will stop hunt-
ing us. We might elude them for
a year, or two. Or ten. Meanwhile
the Elite Party will send out some-
one else to replace Brill. Someone
else to tinker with that fiendish
thing." She paused. "I expect too
much of people, Chan. That's it, I
guess. I expect too much of hu-
man nature." Her mouth curled.
Her voice was flat. "Why should I
give a damn?"

And retrieving Wallace's ther-

motorch, she started off up the
tunnel. Thirty seconds later, Chan
ran after her.

"All right," he said. "Let's go
back. Let's take our chances."

She did not speak until they
reached the tunnel's mouth, open-
ing onto the night desert spreading
out around Thor Peak. The twin
moons rode high, shining whitely
on the clouds of silica blown by
the wind. Dr. June Simmonds said:

"Why, Chan?"

"I'll tell you when we're better
acquainted. Just about the time I
make you realize your father wasn't
so smart in every respect. Come
on."

"Remember all that controversy back home
about Mars . . . and who would've thought ..."

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I03

GATEWAY TO TERROR

rCobert ^ilveroe

Holstein's equations proved that a body
could be hurled through time. The catcher was
that nothing could guarantee its safe return!

LEE WESTLY SWITCHED make sure the apparatus was in

on the light and entered the top shape. Tomorrow, when the

Project Tomorrow lab. He Brass would be here to see the un-

had a few minor tests to run — veiling of the time machine, every-

half an hour's work. He wanted to thing would have to be perfect.

104

There was a man with a gun in
the room.

It took Westly a moment to ad-
just to the idea. The lab was such
a safe place — aside from the brood-
ing vastness of the machinery it-
self — free from the conflicts of the
mundane world. Men with guns
just didn't fit into the picture.

Especially when they happened
to be fellow scientists.

Frowning, Westly said, "Hello,
John. What brings you here — and
what's the artillery for? Afraid of
burglars?"

John Murdoch shook his head.
"No. No burglars around here,
Westly. The gun's for you. If you

don't do as I tell you, I mean.' 1

For the first time Westly began
to be upset. "What in blazes are
you talking about?"

"I'm going to run a preliminary
test on the time machine," said
Murdoch. "Perfectly legitimate
scientific practice — especially with
the big boys coming here tomorrow
to see how well we've spent their
money."

"I know. That's what I'm doing
here. You — "

"Quiet," Murdoch said. "The
records will show that I was the
engineer in charge of giving her
the last run-through, not you. And
you, my friend, will be my guinea

105

io6
pig.'

SPACE TRAVEL

"Murdoch\ n

"If you're going to inform me
that the time-field is irreversible
and that I'm therefore casting
you out of the 20th Century for-
ever, save your breath. I know the
field equations as well as you do."
The lean scientist grinned unpleas-
antly. "I know they're irreversible.
You'll never be found. And, in time,
when Katherine gets over the
shock of your sudden disappear-
ance — "

"No."

"Yes. When Katherine recovers
from the blow, when rumors are
starting to get around that missing
engineer Lee Westly was actually
a Red spy and is now somewhere
behind the Iron Curtain working
on a Soviet time machine — why,
I imagine the field will be clear
for me to marry Katherine. Neat?"

"Admirable," Westly said bitter-
ly. "Your mind was never function-
ing better."

"Get over to the departure stage
of the machine, then." Murdoch
wiggled the gun meaningfully. "And
be proud of your opportunity.
You'll be the first human being
ever to venture into the time-space
distorter."

There was no arguing with the
snout of a gun. Slowly, Westly
crossed the spacious lab, climbed
the little metal railing he had
climbed so often, stepped over the

induction barrier, and out onto the
burnished platinum circle which
was the departure stage.

Murdoch strode to the control
console keeping the gun trained on
Westly. Westly wished there were
something he could do, some trick
he could play, anything to prevent
Murdoch from hurling him through
the time-space fold.

But there was no way to stop
him. No way at all.

"I'm throwing the lever at the
count of three," Murdoch said.
"For my sake and yours don't go
roaming around on the stage. I'd
hate to transport half of you into
the future and have the other half
left behind. You know how I hate
messes, Lee."

"Skip the byplay. Get it over
with." Sweat coursed down Westly 's
face. He looked around the lab —
the lab he had helped to build
and which now would be the in-
strument of his irreversible separa-
tion from Katherine, from the
world he knew —

"One" Murdoch said.

"Two."

"Hurry it up," Westly snapped.

"Goodbye, Lee. It's a pity we'll
never meet again. Three"

He yanked down the lever. A
flood of blinding radiation arced
from the ceiling and swept down
around Westly, sizzling and crack-
ling.

He closed his eyes and staggered

GATEWAY TO TERROR

back as the time-space distorter
beat down at him. The floor seemed
to yield and melt, became nonexist-
ent.

The barrier of the time was shat-
tered momentarily and Westly
plunged through — on a one-way
journey.

A WAKENING CAME SLOW-
-** LY. First there was the smell
of fresh air instead of sizzling
ozone ii] his nostrils. He sucked the
air in greedily, gasping. There was
a curious flavor to it that puzzled
him.

The air was warm — warm and
wet. Cautiously Westly opened his
eyes and sat up.

The world before him was totally
alien.

Hanging blue-leaved trees bowed
before him, dripping with moisture.
Puffs of clouds drifted across the
sky, revealing the bright, too-big
sun. Ahead of him a thick forest
rose. Birds yawped overhead and
one fluttered past him — a curious
creature with jagged red-and-gold
feathers and a deadly-looking tooth-
ed beak.

Where am I?

Elsewhere. That was all he knew.

Project Tomorrow had been built
around Professor Holstein's force-
stress postulates — a set of equations
that predicted, in a vague and
tentative manner, what would hap-
ptn if a force-field of a certain

107

potential were allowed to distort
an area of space.

The machine had been built to
test the theory. But the theory
was just that— a theory. It stated
that a body placed within the ef-
fective distortion field would be
hurled into the future— hurled
longitudinally along the time-axis
of the fourspace continuum, in Hol-
stein's words— for a duration pro-
portional to mass. A mouse might
be thrown a week ahead; a man of
Westly 's 180 pounds would, ac-
cording to Holstein's equations, be
hurled some 20,000 years forward.

All that was theoretical. For all
he or Holstein or anyone else knew
he had been thrown backward in-
to the distant prehistoric past. The
lush vegetation and warmth of the
air and general primitive atmos-
phere seemed to imply that.

But one thing was certain: there
was no returning. Katherine and
all else of 1979 was permanently
behind him. The temporal distor-
tion field equations indicated that
travel in the opposite direction was
absolutely impossible.

He was here to stay.

TTOICES REACHED HIM.

* Harsh-sounding voices, whisp-
ering in an unfamiliar language.

Men?

No. Not men. He saw them now,
approaching in single file through
the forest, moving toward him.

io8

SPACE TRAVEL

Reptiles.

They stood about the height of
a man; green, glossy-skinned, they
wore no clothes but carried effi-
cient-looking machetes slung from
their waists. They were talking.
They were intelligent.

The juture? Westly wondered.
The past? Or —

He poised himself for flight.
The forest didn't look like a wel-
come place to hide but he'd done
some pretty good broken-field run-
ning in college and he'd take his
chances. First, though, he wanted
to see what was going to happen.
He got slowly to his feet and wait-
ed as the reptile-men advanced,
moving quickly and sinuously on
splayed four-taloned feet.

There were nine of them, all in
a row. Machetes glittered in the
too-bright sunlight. The leader of
the group said, "What are you,
strange pink thing?"

"You speak English?" Westly
asked, astonished. "But — "

"English? A strange word. We
speak The Tongue; what else
could we speak but The Tongue?
What are you, strange pink thing?
And where are you from?"

Westly faced the nightmare
creature squarely. "I'm a man. I'm
from the United States, in the year
1979. Where am I and who are you
— and how do you speak my lang-
uage?"

"This is The Kingdom," said

the reptile. "I am Decalon Stol-
lseq, and these are my men. We
know no United States. And it
is natural to speak The Tongue."
Westly shrugged. The language
seemed to be English, but was it?
He had no way of knowing. All
he knew was that he spoke it
and they understood. A side-effect
of the time — space distortion,
no doubt. But these intelligent
reptiles . . .?

He had no time for further
speculation. Decalon Stollseq said,
"I have lost one of my men in
battle and my group is incomplete.
Would you join us, pink one?"
"Join what?"

"The group of Decalon Stollseq.
We seek the Gateway to Else-
where."

Westly frowned. "The — Gate-
way, eh? All right. I'm with you."
He had nothing to lose and if he
gained a few friends in this bi-
zarre world, all the better.

"Test him," Stollseq snapped
to one of his men.

Before Westly knew what was
happening the reptile had stepped
forward and its thick, fleshy tail
lashed out, knocking him to the
ground. Stunned, he groped his way
to his feet again only to have an-
other lightning-like thrust of the
creature's tail slam him to earth.
The reptile cackled. "You move
slowly, pink one!"

"What the hell—" He got to

GATEWAY TO TERROR

109

his feet a second time, edging wari-
ly out of reach of that tail. The
reptile waited for him. Someone
handed Westly a machete. His ad-
versary drew his.

"Are we supposed to fight?"
Westly asked.

The reptile gave him his ans-
wer — a swift, blinding surge of
blows which Westly barely man-
aged to parry. He struck back clum-
sily; the broad machete was heavy
and not suited for the sort of wrist-
maneuvering that was the only
swordplay Westly understood.

The other reptiles cackled ap-
preciatively as Westly gave ground.
Suddenly his opponent brought
his blade crashing down on West-
ly's with ferocious force.

Numbed, the human let his wea-
pon drop. He glanced up, expect-
ing to be hewn to pieces any
moment and only half caring —
when, unexpectedly, another lash-
ing blow from that mighty tail
knocked him sprawling again.

He did not get up immediately.
He tasted mud.

"Enough/' Decalon Stollseq said,
barely able to retain his laugh-
ter. "We find you not suited for
our company, pink one. But we
need a slave. You may join us
in that capacity, if in no other."

From the ground, Westly glared
up angrily. It hadn't been fair.
The reptile weighed a good 300
pounds, and had muscles and

sinews of pure beryllium steel. He
shouldn't be judged by an en-
counter of that sort —

No. This is the way this world
works.

"All right," he said in a beaten
voice. "I'll be your slave."

VK7ESTLY FOLLOWED THEM
* * — at a respectful distance.
They treated him like an interest-
ing sort of dog.

Bitterly, he wished he could get
his hands on John Murdoch. He
could almost forgive Murdoch
everything — the loss of Katherine,
even — except for this. Murdoch had
thrown him into a world where
human intelligence meant nothing,
where muscle and sword-skill were
the highest determining values of
life. He had robbed Westly of hu-
man dignity and Westly could nev-
er forgive him for that.

Westly firmed his lips, squared
his shoulders. He promised him-
self that he'd fight his way back
up. He wouldn't remain a slave,
here in this weird world where
reptiles seemed fc> rule.

He glanced ahead. Decalon Stol-
lseq and his men were pausing,
throwing down their swords,
sprawling out at the side of a blue-
green river.

Westly caught up with them.
"Why are we stopping?" he asked.

"The midday sleep," said Stol-
lseq, as if it should have been

SPACE TRAVEL

self-evident. "It is the time."

"Oh," Westly said.

He sprawled down next to them
and watched. One by one the glassy
yellow eyes closed, the massive
armored chests rose and fell more
regularly. Westly glanced at the
soundly sleeping reptiles and at
their naked swords lying on the
grass. He chuckled. For all their
strength, all their sinew, he could
slit their nine throats one by one
now, kill them all while they slept.

But he had no desire to do that.
Not yet.

The Gateway to Elsewhere —
that was their goal, Stollseq had
said. The term intrigued Westly.
He had come through something
that might be so termed; he was
curious to see what the Gateway
might be. And he depended on
Stollseq and his men to get him
there safely.

The reptiles were snoring peace-
fully. Above, the bloated sun blaz-
ed. Westly passed the time by in-
venting varied and more horrible
revenges he could enact on Mur-
doch if he could ever return to
1979. It was impossible, of course,
but it filled the time pleasantly.

Nearly an hour passed. Finally,
Westly grew impatient. He thought
of waking the reptiles up and re-
jected that idea. Instead, he de-
cided to take a little stroll — pru-
dently arming himself with one of
the discarded swords.

Cautiously he walked through
a fern-thick glade heavy with mois-
ture. The forest was totally silent.
It was as if this entire world lay
down to sleep at mid day.

A hundred yards deeper into
the forest he came upon an in-
teresting sight — 10 of the lizard-
men, sprawled in a haphazard group
like Stollseq's men. And, like Stol-
lseq's men, they were thoroughly
asleep.

A grim idea formed in Westly's
mind. Slowly, with great care, he
tightened his grip on his borrowed
weapon and swung it aloft.

He brought the gleaming blade
swishing down on the exposed
throat of one of the sleeping rep-
tiles. The machete parted the scaly
throat with ease; the reptile quiv-
ered once and was still. That was
one lizard, thought Westly, that
would live to take no more mid-
day sleeps.

Quickly, with cold-blooded ef-
ficiency, he proceeded through the
group, hacking with sharp two-
handed blows. Nine alien corpses
lay in the forest.

He approached the tenth sleep-
er, the lone survivor, and taking
care that the reptile had no way
of reaching a weapon, nudged the
creature with the toe of his foot.
The reptile stirred uneasily, rolled
over, refused to awaken. Westly
kicked it.

This time it awoke — slowly, with

GATEWAY TO TERROR

little comprehension of anything
around it.

Westly said, "get up and come
with me."

The alien's eyes flashed as it
took in the sight of its nine dead
comrades. Without replying it
lashed out with its fearsome tail.
But Westly was prepared.

He sidestepped the killing blow
neatly and struck a heavy one of
his own with the flat of his sword
against the reptilian skull. The
alien staggered.

"The next swing takes your head
Westly said. "Come with me
—and watch what you do with
your tail."

"Who. . . what are you?" the
thoroughly frightened reptile asked.
"What sort of demon is awake
during the midday sleep?"

"I'm a recruiting officer for De-
calon Stollseq. He needs a man to
fill out his complement — and
you're elected. Come along."

He led the reptile back through
the thick glade to where Stollseq
and his men lay, still asleep. He
nudged Stollseq heavily with his
shoe.

The reptile leader was awake
instantly and grasping for his
sword. Westly leaped back hastily
and said, "Not so fast, Stollseq!"
"Why do you disturb me?"
Westly gestured to his captive.
"I bring you the tenth member
of your squadron. Since I'm not

good enough to make the grade
myself, I went out and found you
your man."

Stollseq glanced at the other.
"Who are you, and where are you
from?"

"Kulnok, of Decalon Thorswid's
squadron."

"And where is Decalon Thors-
wid?" Stollseq demanded.

"Dead, with all his men but
this," Westly said. "I encountered
them over yonder hill." Westly held
his breath. Here was where he
might have miscalculated. Perhaps
the dead decalon was an ally of
Stollseq's; perhaps Stollseq would
kill Westly to prevent the same
thing from happening to his group
as had happened to Thorswid's.

But there was unconcealed ad-
miration in Stollseq's eyes. "You
have done well, pink one." He
turned to the captive. "Will you
enter our group, and serve me
loyalty?"

"I will," Kulnok swore.

TT WAS THE first step upward,
A Westly thought, as they contin-
ued to the forest. He had begun to
demonstrate his usefulness to Stol-
lseq and the reptiles treated him
with new respect.

From their conversation Westly
learned a little about the world
he was in. The reptiles were domi-
nant — there seemed to be no
mammalian life whatsoever. Thev

112

SPACE TRAVEL

were chiefly warriors, divided into
independent groups of 10 ranging
through the woods doing battle.

There was no government, or
organized society. It was a purely
cold-blooded civilization. Westly
did not relish spending the rest of
his life here. This was a world
for someone like Murdoch, he
thought — a ruthless, conscience-
less man who could claw his way
to the top and enjoy the pro-
cess. Westly had not enjoyed kill-
ing nine sleepers but it had been
necessary. Murdoch would have
gloried in it.

But Murdoch was back in 1979,
probably consoling Westly's weep-
ing ex-fiance at this very moment.
And Westly was — where?

At nightfall he found out one
thing: he hadn't gone in the direc-
tion the Holstein equations fore-
told. That was when the three
moons rose in the sky.

They were small moons and
seemed not too distant. One was
smooth-faced and bright ; the other
two were smaller, pitted and ragged,
and had a retrograde motion. Start-
led, Westly watched them spirall-
ing across the black curtain of the
sky.

There were constellations, too.
None that he had ever seen be-
fore. The universe had a different
shape.

A sudden wild thought grew in
him. Earth did not have three

moons. It never had three moons
nor was it ever likely to have three
moons. He was, then, not on Earth
— past, present, or future.

Suppose, he thought excitedly,
the time-space distorter had thrust
him not longitudinally but laterally.
Sidewise. Into another continuum,
another fourspace, another and
parallel universe. It was far-fetched
but in view of the evidence, con-
ceivable.

And that meant there was a
way back.

Equations showed conclusively
that the time-flow was irreversible;
there was no way back from the
future. But those equations did not
necessarily hold in this .situation.
He had gotten here.

Why could he not return?

Suddenly, the Gateway to Else-
where took on massive importance
for him. He began asking questions.

"This Gateway you seek," he
said to Stollseq. "What is it?"

The reptile leader said, "It is
a brightness that leads to other
places. It exists to the north, at
the peak of a mighty mountain.
Those who control it control the
world."

"How?"

"They enter its field — and it
takes them anywhere by power of
thought. No walls are closed to
them, no ocean too wide."

Westly's pulse pounded. "This

GATEWAY TO TERROR

113

Gateway, then — it offers unlimit-
ed power to those who hold it. How
can you hope to defeat them?"

The reptile gave his version of
a smile. "Those who now hold
sway grow fat and lazy. I think
we can overthrow them. I know it,
pink one!"

XTIGHTFALL but no darkness.
-*■ ^ The cold light of three moons
lit the forest — and one other
light.

It glimmered brightly ahead, a
gleaming pyre deep in the forest,
shining high on a bare purple crest
of a swelling mountain.

"There it is," Stollseq breathed.
"The Gateway!"

The 10 reptiles gathered in a
tense little group in the forest,
Westly with them. In urgent whis-
pers Stollseq sketched out his stra-
tegy.

"We advance from 10 different
points; each man cuts down the
man in his way. We converge on
the Gateway. The pink one, then,
draws near and catches the at-
tention of the guardians of the
Gateway. While they pursue him
we strike — and the Gateway is
ours!"

Stollseq dispersed his men in
all directions. "You come with me,"
he said to Westly.

Together, they plunged into the
forest.

It was a hard trek up the side

of the mountain. Westly's labora-
tory-softened muscles complained
but he forced himself to keep pace
with the tireless reptile leader.
Halfway up, in a copse of thick-
boled red trees, they came across
the first of the enemy scouts.

He was standing against a tree.
Stollseq saw him first and nudged
Westly. "There," he said.

Westly squinted into the dim
darkness. "I don't see anything,"
he said.

But Stollseq had already gone
into action.

The reptile plunged forward,
sword flashing, and brought the
startled enemy to immediate at-
tention. Stollseq aimed a vicious
blow at the side of the other's
throat. It was parried. Swords rang
in the forest.

Westly edged back, out of sight.
Weaponless, he would stand little
chance if Stollseq fell.

Stollseq had little thought of
falling, though. The burly reptile
hewed his way forward, putting on
a dazzling display of swordsman-
ship. Finally he thrust his blade
deep into the other's throat. Fluid
bubbled forth.

"Come on," Stollseq grunted.
"Let's get moving."

They reached the peak of the
mountain about 15 minutes later.
Westly glanced ahead curiously.
It had been a bold stroke of luck
that had brought him this far; it

would take even more luck to
get him back to his own world
again. But he knew his driving
hatred of John Murdoch would
carry him a long way.

The Gateway flickered and flar-
ed. The night was quiet. Stollseq
said, " There are three guardians of
the Gateway itself. We've disposed
of all the others. If the guardians
ever get into the Gateway we're
all dead men — but if you can
distract them long enough for us
to get into position everything will
be fine."

"I'll do my best."

Without fear he stepped out of
the forest and strode toward the
Gateway.

Three of the reptilian creatures
squatted before the mouth of the
cave from whence came the light.
In the eerie glow of the Gateway
their swords shone brilliantly.

"Greetings, Guardians!"

They stared at him. "What are
you, pink one?"

"I come from afar — from a
world called Earth. I bring a gift
for you — a gift of infinite value,
of power greater than your Gate-
way!"

It was sheer bluff, all the way.
He fumbled in his breast pocket
and was relieved to find his cigar-
ette lighter still there. Drawing it
out he cupped it in his hands,
pressed down the top, and let the
little flame flicker for a moment

SPACE TRAVEL

befpre extinguishing it.

"Magic!" breathed one of the
reptiles.

"Sorcery," said Westly. "I bring
this gift for you. Which of you
three is worthy of it?"

"I!" the three said at once.

"You all speak," said Westly.
"Which outdoes the rest in valor?"

"I," yelled a broad-snouted one.
"I'll take that fire-maker away
from you, pink one!" He rose
from his squatting position and
came charging out of the cave
mouth toward Westly.

The Earthman sidestepped nim-
bly _ an( i saw that the other
two Guardians were not to be out-
done. They, too, were coming forth
in quest of the magic fire-maker.

He glanced quickly in both di-
rections. It was working; he was
drawing the reptiles away from
the cavemouth. If only Stollseq
and his men would attack in time!

Suddenly shouts filled the air.
Swords waved. Westly tossed his
cigarette lighter high overhead
and as the three confused Guard-
ians charged for it, Stollseq's
squadron swept down over them.
Swords rang; cries of pain and
anger could be heard.

But Westly did not stay to see
the outcome of the battle. He dash-
ed inside the cave.

The Gateway flared brilliantly
before him. It was but an unbear-
ably bright hole in space, a fault

GATEWAY TO TERROR

in the time-space matrix perhaps.
He stood hesitantly before it, peer-
ing at its radiance.

Suddenly he heard a shout be-
hind him.

"Ho, pink one! Would you use
the Gateway yourself, and steal
what we have won?"

It was Stollseq.

There was no choice now. West-
ly glanced at the advancing reptile,
then leaped forward.

He felt the warm radiance lick
about him, without causing pain.
At the last moment he thought,
Earth. 1979. He visualized his lab-
oratory . . .

WESTLY! YOU'RE BACK!"
The gasp escaped Murdoch
almost involuntarily. Westly ex-
perienced one blinding moment of
disorientation and then saw he had
indeed crossed the dimensional
gulf. He had returned from no-
where to the lab.

And it seemed as if no time at
all had elapsed. The wall clock
showed 10:30; it had been past
10 when he entered the lab and
encountered Murdoch. The two uni-
verses evidently had different
time-rates.

"Yes. I'm back," Westly said.
He crossed the lab in a few quick
bounds and, -before Murdoch could
get out the gun, he had knocked
the lean man sprawling.
. "I'll take the gun," Westly said.

He did.

Murdoch smiled evenly. "What's
the meaning of this sudden attack,
Lee? Why'd you jump on me?"
"Don't try to brazen out of it!"
"Out of what? I was standing
here minding my own business.
You don't have any proof of what
happened, do you? It's just your
word against mine!"

Startled, Westly realized that
was so. No one would believe his
wild story. Arid the forged records
would show that Murdoch was on
duty tonight and Westly an inter-
loper.

"All right," Westly said. "You've
got me there. But I can still take
it out on you in other ways!"
He advanced on Murdoch, fists
clenched. This was going to be
fun.

But Murdoch suddenly charged
around him and made a wild dash
past —

Right into a glowing oval of
light.

There was a scream and that
was all. Westly watched as the
Gateway, which had been open,
faded.

His scientist's mind realized
what had happened: the Gateway
required balancing. Once it was
opened it would not close again
until an equivalent mass had tra-
velled back through it. Murdoch's
blind dash had taken him back
through the Gateway. Now it was

SPACE TRAVEL

closed.

Westly smiled. Stollseq would be
surprised to see the "pink one"
return — but the reptile leader
would probably make sure the
pink one played no more treacher-
ous games. Probably Stollseq
would not be able to distinguish
Murdoch from Westly.

Poor Murdoch, Westly thought.

He realized he was dead tired,
hungry, and had a two-day beard.
His once-neat lab outfit hung in
tatters. Wearily he picked up the
lab phone and dialed Katherine's
number. He had quite a story to
teli her.

THE END

urodcopic

EVERYONE WHO HAS ever
been lost, be it in a plane, a
boat, or on foot, can never forget
those panicky moments when the
feeling of being unattached to any
reference point, fastens him with
irrational terror.

No man has built within him a
reference system which can orient
him under those conditions. The
famous "balancing canals" of the
inner ear can only respond to such
violent gyrations with nausea and
dis-orientation.

Man, however, produces a sur-
prisingly amazing "inertial refer-
ence frame" - - the gyroscope. A
new emphasis has been laid on this
familiar instrument because of the
demands of the modern rocket age.
Speeds - - velocities are so great
that the nearest thing to an ab-
solute reference is still none too
good for the missile, or vehicle.
It is impossible to guide a rocket
with radio or radar indefinitely. It
is then that the "inertial refer-
ence frame" comes into play.

This phrase really describes the
superbly refined gyroscope and in-

/a/

erence

strumentation accompanying it,
which is a part and parcel of al-
most everything that flies.

The principle is familiar. So long
as a high speed spinning disc (high
moment of inertia as well) is kept
spinning it will strongly resist any
torques or forces which tend to
change its axis of rotation. In fact,
if it is mounted on double sym-
bols, it will preserve that axis no
matter what the framework around
it does - - save for the minute fric-
tional losses in the mountings - -
and with magnetic suspensions these
amount to little.

This permits rockets to be set
into paths built-in; deviations from
the right position are detected by
the deviation between the gyro and
the frame.

Modern gyros are really "think-
ing mechanisms" in the best sense
of that abused word. They are the
computer which tells the machine
which way home was - - which way
the target is. These rough and stur-
dy instruments now resist any ac-
celerations - - good for Moon-
flights too!

AcfatfM

117

The Man Who Would Not Die

cJjarlud John Ljranqer

He came out of space, a man from the dim
past. And they questioned him — tortured him —
trying to find out something he didn't know • . .

THE GREAT METEOR-
pocked Light Speed star
ship dipped into the thin up-
per atmosphere of Centaurus One,
and its plates began to burn cherry-
red. It arrowed down in a scream
of jets on the last plunging miles
of its voyage to the end of the
starry universe. There was one man
left alive aboard, a tall, angular-
jawed man whose eyes did not seem
especially old, but whose hair was
white. He was thirty-eight years
old by his own reckoning, and he
had been in space twenty years,
aboard this Light Speed vessel The
Destiny. For the last ten years of
the voyage he had been entirely
alone, after destroying the broken
bodies of the other eleven men in
the crew. He had slept for years
on end under the kiss of soporific
drugs, and only awakened to find
The Destiny plunging down toward
a strange greenish-gray world
where, he half -remembered, his

mother and father had lived once
in the great city.

This was Centaurus One. He was
coming home. But he was falling
like a roman candle out of the sky.
Death slammed up from below with
the rising of the planet's curve.
The man, called Ian Dane, strap-
ped himself into a grav platform,
tightened the buckles till they bit
his flesh, then took out an old gold
amulet which hung on a chain a-
round his neck. Within the amulet
were photos of strange faces, lined,
gray-haired. His parents. He took
one final glance at them, then tuck-
ed the amulet away beneath his
shirt, listened to the growing shriek
of the starship's tortured hull
through the atmosphere, and wait-
ed. Waited, eyes closed, for death.

He was powerless to tamper with
the controls of the mechanically
propelled ship. He lay with a push-
ing pain against his chest, breath-
ing, wondering how many Centau-

118

rus years had passed since the Light
"*^Speed craft entered warp on its
course to the end of the universe.
Sixty? Eighty? He would never
know . . .

With a crash the weight was lift-
ed from his chest. The Destiny
rocked and righted horizontally and
the shrieking stopped. Ian Dane
unstrapped and rushed to one of
the view plates. Far below he could
see antlike figures of men in a
brightly-lighted field, and wide

glowing beams of force rose up
from that field to cradle the vessel
and set it gently down in the midst
of a grassy wasteland on the plan-
et's night side. Then he knew:
someone had been waiting for the
ship.

Dane was waiting for the horde
of men who converged on the ship
once it settled. They blasted the
doors with atom torches and two
of them, wearing long dress capes,
called orders to the others who

119

120

SPACE TRAVEL

swarmed into the ship and funnel-
led out along its labyrinthine cor-
ridors. The two in command order-
ed others to seize Dane, and be-
fore he knew it he had been hauled
into a two-wheeled vehicle that
sang along a rail through dark
fields toward the glitter of a distant
city.

Both of the men who had order-
ed him seized had thin, unpleasant
faces. Their dress seemed strangely
foreign to Dane as he sat between
them. "What happened to the oth-
er eleven members of the crew?"
asked one of the pair. His com-
panion was busy at a control wheel,
eyes on the glowing city.

Dane tried to keep steady. "They
. . . they were killed. In an acci-
dent, I think. Blasting off from
Vegamax. I must have been un-
conscious when it happened. I woke
to find their bodies, and the ship
lurching along in space. But . . ."
His thin laugh did not win the re-
sponse he wanted. "But this isn't
exactly the kind of welcome I'd
pictured. The Destiny was the sec-
ond Light Speed vessel ever sent
out from here, wasn't it?"

"That is correct," said the figure
at the controls, coldly. "What Mat-
ter?"

"Well . . . damn it," Dane stum-
bled, growing angry, 'Tve been out
there twenty years, and . . ."

"Eighty-four years," said the

other, hollowly. "Centaurus One
time. You were in warp."

Dane fingered the amulet sadly.
"Then my parents . . . and every-
one . . . dead?"

"Dane," the figure at the wheel
responded with even colder tones,
"what did you find on Vegamax?
The survivors of the first Light
Speed ship?"

"No," Dane replied. "Nothing
but the ruins of the ship."

"What about the inhabitants?"
said the other.

"There were no inhabitants,"
Dane replied. Without warning one
of the dark-cloaked figures whip-
ped out a hand and smashed him
cuttingly across the cheek. Dane
reeled, angering. He struggled up in
the seat. "What the hell . . .! I
come back after riding twenty years
in a floating coffin and get this . . .
man-handling, and a landing in the
center of nowhere, and secrecy.
Damn you, who are you? Not from
the Rocket Foundation. I remem-
ber the people from The Founda-
tion. They sent The Destiny up,
but they didn't act like you act . . ."

"The Foundation is gone," said
the figure at the wheel. "Destroyed.
It only served as a blind. Dane, we
are not the men to whom you must
answer, but we were instructed to
ask one more question: what did
you bring back from Vegamax?"
The man's eyes gleamed in the

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE

121

rising glow of the city, gleamed
narrow and lustful. Dane peered
back at him, sorting his thoughts,
thinking, trying to sift memories
of twenty years, and feeling in-
credibly tired and angry. He knew
what they wanted:

"Nothing. There was nothing on
Vegamax . . ."

\Tf ITH A CURSE one struck
* * him again. He fought, but
the other set the controls of the
vehicle and the two outweighed
him, pounding him to the floor in
a spasm of frustration and fury.
The vehicle suddenly shot up a long
incline onto an elevated highway,
and the vehicle's cowl was criss-
crossed with the play of colored
lights from the bright, towering
buildings. Dane moaned on the
floor of the speeding vehicle, moan-
ed and tried to roll with the blows
they rained on him . . .

He awakened to feel his arms
being held and head lolling. When
he opened his eyes he saw his face
reflected in a twisted way in polish-
ed flooring. He raised his aching
head. The floor seemed to continue
forever into the distance. But at
last his eyes struck a pair of shin-
ing boots, and a pair of wheels,
and then things swam into focus:
a long, imposing chamber with
transparent walls looking down up-
on the night city. The boots be-
longed to a sword-thin man in tight

trousers and tunic who wore sev-
eral small medals on his chest. The
wheels belonged to a wheelchair in
which crouched an obese toad-like
creature with flabby cheeks and
eyeglasses. Both men seemed well
into their sixties; both had white
hair. The one in the wheelchair had
a diseased, unhealthy pallor, while
the one with medals was thin with
the wasting of age.

Pudgy hands turned the wheels
and the chair hissed forward. The
thin man came forward and peered
into Dane's eyes. He had a cruel,
smiling face.

"Don't you recognize me,
Dane?" he wanted to know. "Sure-
ly there must be a family resem-
blance."

Dane shook his head, cursing
and struggling in the grip of two
guards. The slender man snapped
his fingers and the guards released
their hold. Dane massaged his ach-
ing arms as the slender man ex-
changed a glance with his obese
companion, then said:

"What does the name Caddis
mean to you, my friend? St. George
Caddis?"

Dane blinked. "Wait . . . it's
been twenty years . . . but . . .
there was a Caddis ruling Cen-
taurus One when The Destiny took
off. But you can't be the same
man . . ."

"Of course not," Caddis answer-

122

SPACE TRAVEL

ed lightly. "I am his flesh, though.
His son. And you'll recall that the
Caddis of eighty-four years ago had
as his chief adviser a Vorshilov.
May I present Victor Vorshilov,
also bearing his father's blood."
The obese man inclined his toad-
like head. Caddis struck a cigarette
and inserted it between his lips,
exhaling, exquisitely. He smelled,
thought Dane, faintly of rotten per-
fume . . .

"My father and his father,"
Caddis purred, "bludgeoned The
Rocket Foundation to launch a
second ship in pursuit of the secret
of the planet Vegamax at the other
end of the galaxy. They then pro-
ceeded to exterminate The Founda-
tion. You've been away some time,
though you hardly look older than
your pictures except for your gray
hair. In any case, the rule of Cad-
dis and his councilor Vorshilov has
grown . . . ah . . . tenuous, shall we
say, during the interim. Even to-
day we, as it were, teeter on the
brink of removal. But our system
of government is a weak one, and
the people are fickle. Now and a-
gain they become aroused, wrathful
... as they have been, off and on,
for the past four years. Yet you,
my dear navigator of the stars,
shall place in our hands the pana-
cea to insure the rule of a Caddis
for a few more generations, at
least."

The fat hands of Victor Vor-

shilov crawled restlessly on the
wheels of his chair. "That is why,"
he said thickly, "our fathers sent
The Destiny in pursuit of the first
rocket which went to Vegamax and
sent back a message. That is why
we're displeased to learn of the
report of our agents who met you
when The Destiny crashed." Little
pads of fat enfolded his malicious
eyes. "We do not for one moment
believe the story that you found
nothing on Vegamax except a
wrecked ship."

Quick as lighting a slender knife
twinkled in the hand of St. George
Caddis, and his supple wrist moved.
Dane cried out in pain and anger,
a vicious cut drolling blood down
his cheek.

"Not for one moment do we be-
lieve that, Dane," he echoed.

Dane spat suddenly on Caddis'
boots, red with fury. "Believe as
you danmed please! It's true!"

"Liar ! " Vorshilov s h ri e k e ^ >
stomping his feet on the floorboards
of the chair. "Filthy liar!"

"I warn you!" St. George Caddis
called sharply. "Try no shabby
tricks, no extortion! You are a
stranger on Centaurus One! Your
friends are dead. Your parents are
dead. The world has changed while
you were gone in time warp, though
you have aged but a fraction. We
control you, Dane, even more sure-
ly than our fathers controlled your

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE

123

parents, because now you are alone.
Utterly alone among billions. And
we are very jealous of our privilege
of rule."

Dane wiped the trickling cheek
with the back of his hand. "What's
the use? You won't believe any-
thing I tell you. You won't believe
that the messages from the first
ship were frauds. They must have
been frauds, because there was
nothing on Vegamax except dust
and one wrecked rocket."

Victor Vorshilov said wetly,
earnestly, "There was a civiliza-
tion on Vegamax."

"No." Dane shook his head.
"There wasn't."

"There were cities," Vorshilov
pushed on dumbly bleating the
words. "Great shining cities which
make the cities of Centaurus One
look like shoddy villages. And
creatures whose minds could open
th? secrets of the whole uni-
verse • • •
-W' That's a lie," Dane repeated

^wLfly- "There was nothing. I
tja veiled twenty years of time. I

Sa*0 >aw it. You didn't see it. I know. I
^^ ^as on Vegamax."

St. George Caddis turned a dark-
er color, and a blue vein stuck on
his forehead. "Damn you!" he
cried. "Damn you, Dane! What's
the use? We can destroy you, beat
you into submission, tear it out of
your brain if we must. You're alone.

You can't hold out against us."
He waited then, biting his lips.
Suddenly the vein throbbed harder
when Dane gave a tired shrug that
said he simply didn't care. Vor-
shilov flew into a rage but Caddis
placed a bony hand on his shoulder
and calmed him. Insinuatingly he
lowered his voice.

"We'll share, Dane. We'll share
handsomely for what you know. A
fortune. You're still young. Not
more than forty. You can be power-
ful on Centaurus One, if you'll just
help us. After all, you're the only
survivor, our only link with the
thing The Destiny was sent after.
Come, Dane. Be a reasonable man.
We'll pay you more than you
dreamed, in exchange for what you
know."

BY THIS TIME Dane began to
feel lost, abandoned, but furi-
ously reckless. He threw back his
head and laughed. "Pay me now,
then. Give me robes and make me
one of your nobles. Because all I
know is this, Caddis: there was
nothing on Vegamax but one ruined
Light Speed ship, and the rotting
bones of the men who took it
there."

It happened quickly, then. St.
George Caddis howled like a mad-
man for his guards, and they hus-
tled Ian Dane below into the pit
of the building, far from the lights,
far from any kind of human com-

124

SPACE TRAVEL

panionship. As time had stopped
when The Destiny had conquered it
with its speed of 99.99999 percent
of light, so time stopped when Cad-
dis' crew of psychological torturers
went to work on Dane in darkened
rooms locked far below the city.

There were hours of red pain,
and hours of cool white pain, and
hours when his nerves glowed like
copper wires charged with a mil-
lion volts. He was surprised at his
own stamina: something made him
fight, something made him cling
to the last, to a dumb, stupid
grunt of resistance that was sup-
posed to be, "Not"

Finally he blacked out . . . and
awakened freshly bathed, his
wounds dressed, in a sealed room
with a couch and a small bowl of
fruit. He wolfed some of the fruit,
wondering what he could possibly
do to escape them, when suddenly
a rectangular crack appeared in one
of the walls. Dane whirled around,
expecting Caddis. He saw instead
a woman of perhaps his own age,
with streaks of gray in her brown
hair; a woman with a still-hand-
some figure and with cool amber
eyes. Her gown rustled as she ap-
proached, she smelled faintly of
wintergreen. For some reason Dane
liked the aroma.

"You lived through it," she
said to him. "Somehow I didn't
believe you would."

The woman leaned forward gent-

ly and touched cool fingertips to
one of the broken-vesselled blotches
on his cheek. Dane blinked vaguely,
suspiciously, noticing in her man-
ner an abrupt shift from sympathy
to tight-reined but furious anger.
He drew away from her across the
couch until it dawned in his mind
that her anger was directed not at
him but at someone else. He knew
he was housed in the citadel of his
enemies, yet she did not seem an
enemy. A clever trick, his mind
warned. They are applying beauty
now, rather than pain. Dane glow-
ered at her.

Speculatively she said, "I really
don't understand it at all. Have
you any idea of the variety of
tortures through which they put
you? Every machine in the hellish
basement of this place . . . and
you never broke, not once. They
kept going at you for three days
running. Did you know that?"

"I knew it must have been quite
a long time," Dane said warjiy.
"But three days . . . And why do
you say I didn't break down? T
cried. I remember crying several
times."

"But you didn't tell them wha
they wanted to hear." Her amber
eyes were approving. "You only
screamed a little 'no' when they
asked about Vegamax. I watched,
you see. There's sort of an amphi-
theatre down there, and I watched
part of the treatment." An evil

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE

125

memory of horror made her gown
stir with a shudder. "Dane, I be-
lieve they're beginning to be afraid
of you."

He stood suddenly, grasping
her wrist, and she uttered a tiny
cry. "Look," he ripped out, "I don't
know who you are except that
you're probably another variation
of their little inquisition. Well, I
haven't got anything to say to you
either. There was nothing on Vega-
max. Nothing but a ruined ship."
His fingers cut her wrist, digging
deep. "Damn you, go back to them
and tell them again! Tell them un-
til they believe you! There was^
nothing on Vegamax! Nothing!"
Only when she cried out sharply
and bit her lip did Dane release
her, wondering quickly whether he
were going a trifle mad: for if she
belonged to them, she should have
fled, and yet she didn't. She col-
lapsed to the edge of the couch,
chafing her gouged wrist, staring
up sorrowfully at him from her
cool amber eyes. Thickly Dane
said, "Tell me who you are. Tell
me the truth . . ."

"Nela Caddis," she returned
quietly, averting her gaze. "His
sister."

He knotted a fist in her hair and
jerked her head back ruthlessly.
"Then they did send you!"

"No, no, they have no idea I've
come."

Dane laughed in weary contempt.
"Oh? I suppose you're offering me
a way to escape, eh? In return for
what they want to hear about Vega-
max?"

Sadly she shook her head.
"There's no way for you to escape,
Dane. I'm his sister, and I have
certain authority, but not that
much." Her hand appeared from a
fold of the gown. In it gleamed a
cold, slender shard of steel. She
pressed it into his fist. "I can only
offer you this, as a way of release
when they come to kill you. And
I'm sure they will. You'll be taken
below a final time, and put under
the machines, and if you don't ans-
wer, they'll leave you under the
machines until there is nothing left
of you except a jerking heap of
jelly dancing in the rays." The am-
ber eyes were pleading now: "Be
easy on vourself. You've come back
to a world that doesn't know you.
You took off in The Destiny long
before I was born. It's hopeless."

Dane cocked a scarred eyebrow.
"Is it? Suddenly I wonder."

"What do you mean? You can't
stand against them. They rule Cen-
taurus One. They rule me .
everyone. And even if you can't
"What do you want? Why are
you here asking me the same ques-
tions about Vegamax?"

"I ... I felt sorry for you. I
wanted to help you."

126

SPACE TRAVEL

give them the secret of Vegamax,
they'll still rule, even if for a short-
er time. Make your peace, Dane.
Take the dagger and use it before
they hurt you again."

PURIOUSLY Dane paced the
x featureless room. "You could
do me a great service, Nela Caddis.
You could persuade your brother
and that Vorshilov that the mes-
sages which came back from the
first rocket— before it crashed—
were false. There are no cities.
There are no intelligent beings.
Most especially, there are no beings
who possess the supposed secret
those messages talked about— the
secret of human regeneration. Who-
ever beamed that message back
must have been out of his mind at
the end of a long voyage. It was a
madman's prank, that' all." Dane's
eyes met hers levelly. "Tell them
there is no secret of life-generation.
They'll have to find another trick
to perpetuate themselves and their
system of rule. I can't help."

Nela Caddis held her hands in
her lap, twisting them. "You're a
fool."

"I suppose I am," Dane said, in
a strangely hollow, introspective
voice. "I can't understand why I
was able to survive the machines.
Or why I won't use this." He rais-
ed the dagger before his eyes and
stared long at it. "Clearly it's the
sane thing to do. Suddenly I'm

quite brave." A jagged laugh con-
torted his mouth. "Isn't that the
damndest thing? I'm not afraid of
them."

"Then you are a fool, as I said."
Dane shook his head slowly.
"No, there's a reason. But I can't
grasp it." The frown deepened on
his face. "Somewhere, back in my
mind, there's something . . ." His
voice died away and his thoughts
turned inward. At last he jerked
himself from his reverie. "I believe
you were trying to help me and I
thank you. But you'd better go."
Nela Caddis rose, gazing at
Dane wordlessly as if the sorrow
she felt could not be expressed. She
gave a tiny nod. "Yes, you're right.
But please, Dane. Use the knife." "
One hand touched his arm for a
moment, warm and faintly winter-
greened. "Be kind to yourself."
Then she whirled on one small
jeweled slipper. Whispering over
her shoulder, "I'll say no more.
Goodbye, Dane . . ."

"Bravo, bravo!" cried a voice.
"Bravo, sister! You have already
said quite enough!"

Dane and the woman whirls
unison. One of the blank walls of
the room blurred behind an odd
filmy haze and suddenly was gone.
St. George Caddis stood mockingly
clapping, and in his wheelchair
Vorshilov smacked his fat hands
together too. Dane let out a bellow
of rage and ran at them with tb^

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE 127

dagger lifted. St. George Caddis
did not flinch as Dane whipped the
dagger down in a vicious arc. Too
late, Dane saw the trap . . .

The dagger's point smashed a-
gainst the invincible transparent
wall, shattering and jolting pain
along his arm. Behind the observa-
tion glass, his voice echoing tinnily
over a loud-speaker, Caddis re-
marked, "Really Dane, my sister
should be familiar with this build-
ing and its special rooms. Evident-
ly she wasn't using her head. Ah,
well. In any case, she was right."
His face twisted into hateful lines.
"You shall go to the machines a
final time. And my sister, I think,
shall go with you." Nela Caddis
screamed and her brother laughed.
"Dear Nela, I won't kill you, of
course, but I do think it was time
you learned a lesson. Perhaps
M twenty-five percent of the treat-
ment which we gave Dane will
suffice to correct your deviations.
* I'm really getting rather bored with
your insane sentimentalist ideals."
And Caddis swept up a hand and
snapped the fingers.

The woman was frightened: she
sobbed wildly as the thickshoulder-
e.d guards carried her, along with
Dane, down to the pits of the build-
ing. Dane heard her crying dimly,
shrieking in terror, as the red pain
and the cool white pain began a-
<*ain. Yet strangely once more, he
endured, hearing distantly his voice

shouting "No!" in response to the
questions that never reached to the
still-living center of his mind.
Slowly numbness and dark crept
through him, until only one tiny,
cold center back in his brain still
clung to consciousness. The screams
of Nela Caddis came to his ears as
tiny squeaks. He suspected, wear-
ily, that they were letting kirn hear
those outcries, in the hope that he
would at last relent, would at last
tell the truth . . .

But there was nothing on Vega-
max, that was the truth. What dif-
ference did it make? The creeping
paralysis, the shutting off, one by
one, of the nerve centers in his
body, told him he was dying. He
was oddly puzzled by his calm since
this was death, useless death. Use-
less indeed. He'd been to Vegamax,
hadn't he? He'd seen the wreckage
and nothing else, hadn't he?

Then, in the infintesimal fraction
of time before he wholly died, the
answer came.

You're with me, he called within
himself. You're with me in symbio-
sis, aren't you? And he was ans-
wered as he knew he would be
answered, for the secret had come
out at last; he'd discovered it in
the final moment before death, dis-
covered it because it could no long-
er hide in these last elemental sec-
onds of dark, pure being, and in
the micro-instants left yet, his
brain laughed without sound. He

128

said, There were cities, but I never
saw them, because you blanked my
thoughts and hid, and you've tra-
velled with me. Again the answer
came, as the last nerve center slow-
ly went out, and the only consci-
ousness left to him said; And there
was a secret, ^and you've brought it
because it is part of you. Very sure
of himself, he commanded: Use it.
Use it with me. You must use it,
because they deserve destruction

The last nerve center burned out,
and Dane died.

p WAS TERRIBLY odd to a-

«■• waken as though he had just
slept for a short time; awaken and
find himself sprawled in wind-whip-
ped grass under the deserted hull
of The Destiny in the night-dark
field. The technicians had all gone,
defeated perhaps in their stripping
of the vessel. Dane rolled over,
chuckled, speaking with the thing
inside him, asking why it had tra-
velled with him, learning that it
had been sent by its fellows to see
what sort of existence was lived by
these maurauders who had come
through time to strip Vegamax of
its secrets. Dane suddenly saw the
huddled form of Nela Caddis in
the grass. He bent over her lifeless
body, and held a conversation with
what inhabited his body. His face
was grim, for he commanded by
virtue of irrefutable logic: his po-
sition was utterly right, and it

SPACE TRAVEL

knew.

Dane and Nela Caddis spoke lit-
tle on the long, foot-weary trek
back to the city. Dane clasped her
hand in his, trying to explain. She
only said, -They . . . put me too
far beneath the machines. My
brother was furious. He ordered full
power ... and then suddenly, your
face was there, against the stars,
and ... and . . .» Her voice broke.
Dane touched a hand to her lips
to silence her gently. They trudged
on toward the glowing pile of the
city's lights. In Dane sang a new
certainty, a new sense of victory
and belonging. It would be his
Centaurus One again.

They had no trouble at all enter-
ing the building. Guards ran from
them, howling in fear.

Dane pushed open tall massive
doors. Vorshilov screwed his head
around from where he crouched in
his wheelchair by the window which
looked down on the glowing
St. George Caddis, a jug "in his
hand and alcohol drooling
his mouth and spotting his t
lolled in a chair, his eyes focusiY
blearily on the two figures ft
came toward him in the gloom.

Suddenly he sat bolt upright and
dropped the jug with a crash.
"Good evening," Dane said.

Caddis stared at Dane, then at
his sister. His hand dropped use-
lessly to the weapon strapped cm
his side. A bolt, white-fiery, ripped "

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE

129

out and burned a smoky hole in
Dane's chest. The hole closed and
Dane laughed. St. George Caddis
shot again and Dane's body smok-
ed and re-formed. After the third
attempt he flung away the weapon,
eyes dilated with fear, and ran to-
ward a door which led to a small
balcony above the city. There, driv-
en beyond reason by the past few
moments, he leaped to the rail,
turned his eyes glowing wild like
lanterns, and then he jumped. He
arched like some odd bird, black
and angular against the lights, and
then dropped, two miles straight
^ down into the boiling lighted heart
of the city.

Dane took Nela's hand and
walked forward.

Victor Vorshilov's eyes popped
hideously. He gagged once, then
slumped forward when his heart
opped beating. Dane took a deep
ith. Just so simply had the vic-
tory been won.

Then there is a secret on Vega-

*-' may, he said to the symbiotic a-

g:nt, neither pure body nor pure

irain, which was lodged in him and

bid travelled across time. The

answer came back. / could call on

•^ you because you're good, Dane

thought, and you were afraid when

the first rocket came, and was

wrecked, that we would despoil

you, and take the secret away, eh?

The secret of life regeneration?

Well we won't. You saved me when
I needed you, but only because you
knew I was right and they were
wrong, wasn't that it? The answer
came back. You helped me, but I
knew you would, once I knew where
you were and what you were.
There'll be a change, now, I sup-
pose, so you'll have little to fear
from us. Those two men are gone.
I'll see that the secret is kept.

"By blood lines," Nela spoke
softly, "I am my brother's heir for
six years to come."

Dane turned, his face wondering
in the reflection of the city's glow.
"You . . . hear it too?"

"Yes, it's with me. With both of
us."

"Then there is surely nothing to
be afraid of," Dane said aloud.
"You can go back to Vegamax to
your cities. You trusted those first
men on the first ship didn't you?
And their messages were true. Well,
just the two of us know anymore.
We'll keep the secret well. And . . ."
Dane smiled wearily. "... and in
case we should ever decide to send
another rocket, why, you can reach
out and kill us, can't you?"

The answer came back. And a-
gainst the lights of the city, a mo-
mentary shadow blurred.

"It's gone," Dane said, his face
peaceful at last. He put his arm
around Nela.

THE END

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to $10.75-for only $1 with Club membership! You'll be
proud to own these handsome, hard-bound, full-length
classics ... and you'll enjoy exploring the mysterious
luture through the eyes of the greatest Science-Fiction
writers in the world!

NO BLADE OF GRASS by John Chris-
topher. Headlines screamed: "Latest
Death Toll Figures for Asian Famine*
600.000,000 Lives !" Now the deadly germ
is sweeping England. (Pub. ed. $2.95.)
BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCI-
ENCE-FICTION. (Seventh Edition)
15 electrifying classics from Fantasy
and Science- Fiction Magazine. (Pub
ed. $3.75.)

SEND NO MONEY
JUST MAIL COUPON

Your choice of any 3 of the new
Science-Fiction masterpieces
described here — at only $1 for all
-Plus free Round-Trip Res-
ervation to the Moon. Two books are
your gift for joining, and one is
your first Club selection. Every
month, you will be offered the
"cream" of the new $2.50 to $3.95
ce- Fiction books for only $1.
You take only those books you really
want — as few as four a year. You
receive advance descriptions of
every selection in Club's free bul-
letin. This offer may have to be
withdrawn. So mail coupon RIGHT
' n W to :

SCIENCE-FICTION BOOK CLUB
Dept. 8-MG-O, Garden City, N. Y,

J8*

ciouo

THE MIND CAGE by A. E. Van Vogt.
lou've just recovered consciousness. You
find your mind is inhabiting the body of
a man who is sentenced to DIE! (Pub.
ed. $3.50.)

?E^ T .,£?^ E ,1 CE - F,CTI0N STORIES
AND NOVELS. (Ninth Series) 12 bril-
liant science-fiction thrillers by top-
notch writers. (Pub. ed. $3.50.)

THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert
A. H oi n loHn. Dan Davis undei;
process known as "The Cold Bleep." He
wakes up 3 years later — in an exciting
world of lovely women! (Pub. ed.

THE BLACK CLOUD by Fred Hoyle.
"The entire population of earth will be
destroyed within 16 months." savs Pro-
fessor Kingsley. "The temperature will
drop to 500° below — or rise so hi oh we
Will all be, cremated ! " (Pub. ed. $2.95.)

WHICH THREE D0 F ZZ u X$ m $1 00

SCIENCE-FICTION BOOK CLUB
Dept. 8-MG-O, Garden City, N. Y.

Please send FREE Moon-Tour Reservation. Also rush 3
books checked below, as my gift books and first selection Hill
me only $1 (plus shipping charge), and enroll me as a mem-
ber. Every month send the Club's free bulletin. BO that 1 may
decide whether 1 wish to receive the coming selection. For each
book I accept, I will pay only $1 plus shipping. I need take
only 4 books during each year I am a member — and 1 may re-
sign ait any time after accepting 4 selections.
GUARANTEE: If not delighted. I may return all books in 7
days, pay nothing, and this membership will be cancelled.

□ Best from Fantasy and □ Black Cloud

Science-Fiction
D Best Science-Fiction
Stories and Novels

□ Door into Summer
D Mind Cage

□ No Blade of Grass.

Address_
City

_ (PLEASE PRINT)

■J

- (-Offer good o nly in IT. 8. and Canada) S59

Same offer I f Canada. Address

Science-Fiction Club. 105 Bond Street. Toronto 2».

WANTED

People who want to go to the MOON!

Would YOU like to explore the mys-
terious world of tomorrow? Are
you convinced of the reality of space
travel within the next 25 years? Do
you really want to be one of the first
moon pioneers? If your answer is yes
tiie Science-Fiction Book Club wants
YOU!

In fact, the Club will send you at
once — absolutely FREE — an authentic
Moon Tour Reservation. This wallet-
size Reservation certifies that you are
among the first to apply for such a
trip, but does not commit you to ac-
tually take the voyage. Your name is
entered in the Science-Fiction Book
Club archives, which will be turned

SEND TODAY FOR YOUR
MOON TOUR RESERVATION f\

over to the first commercial rocket
ship company.

Your Reservation includes many
amazing facts, such as your actual
weight on the moon and a rocket ship
schedule. To get your Free Mbi
Tour Reservation right away, here's
all you do: Choose any 3 of the e
citing Science-Fiction thriller'- de-
scribed on the other side for on'y $1
with Club membership. Then fill in
the coupon — there is no need tc end
money now — and mail it today.

^r-

with ANY

OF THESE THRILLING

SCIENCE-FICTION CLASSIC

All for only fWOO „«;

M«M*SHIP

The f
filMf*

aevp

see o-y

FOR COMPLE1
DETAILS

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